




■*t^o< 




•jJsfs^v..'^.. O vl t^ 













^0^. .9'^ 










^^^.c 







. ^ 






^ *•»•** ^^"^ 











\ 





























r %^^^''%o^ V^^V "-^^^^'--'^^ 












'...' A 




HOW ONE CHURCH 

WENT THROUGH 

A WAR 

BEING A SELECTION OF SERMONS 
FROM THE NOTE BOOK OF THE 
OCTOGENARIAN TRAVELLER 

W. SPOONER ^MITH 

Author of "Travel Notes of an Octogenarian" 




BOSTON: THE G O R H A M PRESS 

TORONTO: T HE COPP CLAR K CO.. LIMITED 



Copyright, 1916, by Richard G. Badger 
All Rights Reserved 

S66 



Made in the United States of America 
The Gorham Press. Boston, U. S. A. 



f/? 



JUN 15 1916 
©CI.A431495 



PREFACE 

These sermons were written over fifty years 
ago, during the stress and conflict of a great civil 
war. They are not published because the public 
responds to this class of writing, but because they 
are charged with the life throes of brothers in 
conflict, they are alive with the instincts and 
anxieties of differing views, and because it was 
thought that words written at the time might pre- 
serve some sense of that vital four years' crisis 
to a generation that can learn of it only from the 
fathers. 

This year the author of these sermons has 
joined the great majority of those who have left 
a debt of gratitude to their descendants for a 
preserved and united country. 

May not the final message of peace and victory 
bring a note of hope from the past to our warring 
world? 



CONTENTS 

A War Sermon — Preached at Guilford June 9, 1861 7 

A Sermon — Preached August 18, i86i ... 27 

A Sermon — ^Preached Thanksgiving, November 1862 44 

On The Death of Charles Benton .... 63 

A Sermon — Matt, xxiv: 35 78 

A Sermon — Preached June 26, 1864 .... 97 

A Sermon — March 15, 191 2 — Written April 30, 1863 115 

National Thanksgiving Sermon — Preached in 

Guilford August 6, 1863 129 

Thanksgiving Sermon — Preached at Guilford, 

November 26, 1863 141 



HOW ONE CHURCH WENT THROUGH 
A WAR 



HOW ONE CHURCH WENT 
THROUGH A WAR 

A WAR SERMON 

Preached at Guilford, June 9, 1861. 

Curse ye, Meroz, said the Angel of the Lord, 
curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof: because 
they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help 
of the Lord against the Mighty. — Judge v. 23. 

Brethren and friends, in the time of our provi- 
dential separation as people and pastor a great 
change has passed on the face of our beloved 
land. The little cloud like a man^s hand which 
rested in our horizon without exciting serious ap- 
prehension, has risen and grown and made all 
the heavens black with clouds and wind. War 
great and threatening is actually upon us. A 
time of anxiety and trouble such as we had never 
anticipated has come. We cannot if we would, 

7 



8 HOW ONE CHURCH 

keep our thoughts from the great and dreadful 
fact. We should not, for we all have individual 
relations to It which It gravely concerns us to 
know. You have doubtless all meditated deeply 
upon this matter, the ministers of the sanctuary 
have doubtless from time to time given you the 
counsels of God's word respecting the duty of 
the hour, but you will permit me while the storm 
is in no wise abating but rather assuming more 
and more portentous dimensions, to briefly re- 
consider In the light of God's word the duty of 
the man of God in this eventful crisis. 

This call to arms has surprised the Christian 
sentiment of the loyal nation, fixed with deep 
prejudices In favor of peace. The profession of 
the soldier was fast becoming outlawed. Chris- 
tian people were finding it more and more diffi- 
cult to harmonize participation In any war with 
the spirit of the gospel of the Prince of Peace. 
An army of thirty thousand men was by many 
regarded as an almost useless appendage to a na- 
tion of thirty million souls. 

This strong sentiment against all wars stands 
foremost for examination in an Inquiry for the 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 9 

way of the Christian citizen's duty. If God says 
all war Is unjustifiable and wrong, then what else 
may be urged from other deductions? the ques- 
tion Is settled for all the people of God. If God 
forbids they must not fight or help unto any fight- 
ing. 

But is that the law? 

Thou shalt not kill, no more forbids all ex- 
ercise of violence than It abolishes the scaffold. 
There Is legitimate force of violence that must 
be exercised by the blow of the executioner, by 
the carnage of battle. 

The word of God recognizes In this world of 
lawlessness the necessity of the sword of law. 
Society has been often helped by battles, even as 
the atmosphere we breathe Is purified by storms. 

Was not God's ancient people accustomed and 
under divine command accustomed to the camp 
and the battlefields? Was not chosen Israel in- 
deed a church militant, did not God teach their 
hands to war and their fingers to fight? Were 
there not men of even great powers renowned 
also as men of blood? Were not Abraham and 
Moses and David and Joshua and a great mul- 



lo HOW ONE CHURCH 

titude of worthiest worthies leaders of armies? 
It is even so. 

Then if we look into the future as forecast by 
the prophet of Patmos, is it not by the throes of 
conflict that the blessed age comes to its birth? 
See we not that it is, by the marshalling of host 
again even to the last, by overturning of wars 
that must needs be, that He whose right it is shall 
at last come to His right and rule the whole earth? 
Not that this conflict is in itself good, not because 
the sword converts and sanctifies but because with 
other agencies it must needs be,— a necessary evil. 
The storm that strews the seas with wrecks is 
better than the fatal poison of universal stag- 
nation. 

We settle down to those conclusions by study- 
ing the spirit of the sacred record. 

We see there no sweeping condemnation of all 
war, but on the other hand we see the sword In 
the hand of many a faithful servant of the Most 
High. We see also an express necessity of war 
recognized, a time given unto it, and a large place 
given unto it in the economy of the world's re- 
demption. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR ii 

But our text gives us a case where fighting was 
not only according to the will of God, but where 
they who declined it were cursed. The offense 
of Meros was that it did not respond to a procla- 
mation of war, because it did not arm and dare 
and fight. Because it did not with weapons win 
and come up to the help of the Lord, to the help 
of the Lord against the mighty, it was cursed 
bitterly, cursed by the Angel of the Lord. 

From this then we learn that there are times 
when it is not only right to gird on the sword, 
but also that there are times when to withhold 
one's self from cooperation with demonstrations 
of warfare is utterly unjustifiable in the sight of 
God. 

Christians not only may fight, but out of the 
signs of the times they may sometimes read the 
clearest indications of the will of God, that they 
go up to conquer or die upon the field of blood. 

The question then becomes narrowed down to 
this. Is this one of those emergencies when we 
are called to the help of the Lord, to the help 
of the Lord against the Mighty? 

We choose in answering this question to con- 



12 HOW ONE CHURCH 

suit the Word of God. From that we are sure 
that government is ordained and sanctioned by 
Him who is the soul of all authority. Order is 
heaven's first law, and as heaven comes down to 
the earth there is the infusion of this same spirit. 
A bad government is better than anarchy, and as 
a rule the institutions of the nations have been as 
good as they could bear. With allowance of ex- 
ceptions, the regulations, the laws of a community 
are the expression of its highest practical wis- 
dom. So inspiration might and did honor the 
bloody scepter of Nero; Paul himself a victim 
of executive injustice, under God enjoins a spirit 
of submission and loyalty and honor to all that 
are in authority, he under God indicated the sword 
of government as a power that must be exercised 
in the earth. We have had a government, it has 
been just, equal, kind, beneficent, abounding in 
prosperity, prolific of blessing, more than ever a 
government was upon the face of the earth. 

It had in itself the means and the disposition 
to modify its provisions, change its regulations, 
for the redress of every grievance that might be 
made to appear. If God would have no rebel- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 13 

lion against the cruel tyranny of Nero, the harsh 
ambitious despotism of Rome, if he endorsed 
their commission to bear the sword of authority 
with all their abuse thereof, then we may well 
believe God stands by law here, and that he will 
justify self-defense, and its rightful jurisdiction 
to it, and that if he has a people who will not 
come up to his help, and sustain such institutions 
as these, he will curse them. 

Whether it can be understood elsewhere or not, 
it will be understood here that we are standing 
for the very existence of that divinely sanctioned 
institution of government. We know, if this goes, 
God's best blessing to us is gone. If we cannot 
retain this, we lose all. We know if institutions 
ever deserved to be defended and perpetuated at 
the cost of treasure or of our blood, those of ours 
must come into that count. And be it observed 
that here the responsibility for the exercise of 
authority and the preservation of power are not 
resting upon one or a few men, but that each man 
Is a sovereign with a measure of duty of sov- 
ereignty. 

It is ours not only to honor and obey but also 



14 HOW ONE CHURCH 

to enforce and defend. 

Who are to exercise the violent powers, who 
are to go to the post of danger, who are to make 
sacrifices ? The people, all who receive the bless- 
ings of these popular Institutions. If now God is 
on the side of the laws, then we are imperatively 
called upon to fight. For the time has come when 
mad rebellion assails not only the just laws, but 
the very vltahty of the government. To bear 
more is wicked consent to destruction. Fierce 
blows are being aimed at the bond of constitu- 
tional authority, which being severed we fall Into 
helpless anarchy or despotism. Then we know 
that it Is of God that a government like this with 
such a record of history, with the letter of Its 
constitution and laws so commending itself to all 
sense of justice, righteousness, beneficence, it Is of 
God, that such a government should resist to 
the last with all its concentrated force, rebellious 
hostility. It is of God that the executives proceed 
to condemn and punish all transgressors of these 
just and wise and necessary regulations, to see 
that violence and theft and dishonesty and murder 
and all crimes be visited with their appropriate 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 15 

penalties, and when evil does band into armies, 
and undertake gigantic villainies, then the Repub- 
lic must send her police by regiments, numbers 
on numbers, with all necessary and fitting arms 
and appliances, till, though It be over battlefield 
after battlefield, traitors and rebels are utterly 
overcome and duly punished. Such a work as 
this, though It be done In blood and fire, we feel 
has the approbation of him who concedes the 
right of coercion to the sacred Institution of 
government. 

This great and dreadful strife we know was 
necessitated of rebellion. Thank God that on the 
dear, blessed stars and stripes there is yet no 
stain, they have only waved to bless, and they 
float to-day In the grandeur of the noblest for- 
bearance, that power ever exercised toward 
wicked. Insolent outrage. 

This carries us beyond the consideration of the 
fact of rebellion and the necessity of Its repres- 
sion to the nature of that rebellion. 

Now It Is a fact that eight or fifteen states of 
this confederacy are persuaded that they cannot 
live without slavery, if they see it as they de- 



i6 HOW ONE CHURCH 

clare only inferior to the Christian religion In 
Its beneficent effects upon society. If they could 
not be content till they had established a system 
of government resting upon this one boasted foun- 
dation, If thus they had resolved to take practical 
issue with all humanity, and build up from corner 
to top stone one grand despotism, even then they 
need not have gone Into rebellion. Had they 
sought constitutional and peaceable means of sev- 
erance from the states that believed in another 
gospel, that end could have been attained. Union 
under those circumstances never could or would 
have been enforced. But, doubtless because of 
the lack of that unanimity, the leaders who have 
for years been infatuated with the vision of a 
great slave empire, resolved to try rebellion as 
a short road to disunion and Independence. 

And such a rebellion marked with such un- 
scrupulous disregard of all rights and Interests 
but their own, such falsehood, such dishonesty, 
such treachery, such violence and Insult! We 
search the records of civilization In vain to find 
its equal, not in anger, but In pity and amazement 
we look upon a people crazed with passion, lashed 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 17 

to fury by ten thousand lying representations. 
For six long months our government looked for 
the groundless excitement to pass away, most se- 
ditious and treasonable language was tolerated 
almost unrebuked In the halls of the Capitol, 
words and acts were endured which In any other 
civilized nation would have brought their authors 
to sudden punishment. 

Not till she felt the dagger of the assassin 
seeking her very heart did the Republic spring 
to the defense. God be praised that the nation 
awoke to Its fearful peril ! God be praised that 
she became not a victim to her love of peace and 
faith In her foes ! God be praised that we still 
have a government still mighty to command, pro- 
tect and defend ! 

The loyal nation, by all Its habits and predilec- 
tions, Is for peace, the interests of the people 
bind them to an industrial and commercial repose 
with chains of gold, our President, Cabinet and 
Governors are all men of peace, there Is no fear 
of military ambition, no anger or revenge burns 
in the popular mind, there are no gains in treas- 
ure or territory to be gathered by the sword, yet 



i8 HOW ONE CHURCH 

here are mighty states vying with each other in 
a great and solemn devotion to their country — to 
their God, in the readiness and unanimity with 
which they give themselves to the dread work of 
war I 

The nation by unparalleled outrages has been 
roused to a full sense of its governmental re- 
sponsibility and functions. Constitutional order 
must be reestablished on immovable fundations, 
evildoers must be punished, the oppressed re- 
lieved, and through the land and through the 
world it must be proclaimed by acts of might, that 
free institutions are not only benignant but also 
self-sustaining and enduring. 

We must do this. Is it not the voice of God 
that commands it, that the nations need not in 
despair turn from the hopes aroused by our splen- 
did history, — to the fate of anarchy or despotism? 

The Christian soldier is, under God, the serv- 
ant and guardian of that more than royal or im- 
perial order, even the seat of law and liberty 
which sacrifice and blood established here. He 
fights against injustice, violence ; he fights the ene- 
mies of humanity. He fights for order and 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 19 

equity. His blows and blood shall give emphasis 
to the best code of enactments that have yet been 
given into the world. Yes, laws must be lifted 
up from their dishonor, or in time we shall be- 
come the victim of the rapacity and violence that 
as yet has been meted out to a few of us. 

We believe God is calling the people to the 
sword and not only because there is rebellion, but 
because it is the wickedest and most unjustifiable 
rebellion upon record. Wicked because its root 
is in human oppression, wicked because its every 
advance is marked with outrage, wicked because 
meant to be destruction to the best government 
the world has ever known, unjustifiable because 
there has been no provocation, the very arch- 
traitors themselves having been chief oflScers and 
councilors, leading spirits in the government, up 
to the time the great rebellion was instigated. 

If the curse of God falls upon men because 
they fail to apprehend the signs of the time of 
war, because they come not up to the help of 
the Lord against the mighty, then let men think 
well before they speak or act against the present 



20 HOW ONE CHURCH 

policy of our government. It is perilous to seek 
peace when God summons the hosts to battle. 

But, says the timid man, What is the use of 
fighting? If nothing more, call out your police 
and make one honest and determined effort to 
restore order. The policeman may not get the 
advantage of the desperate burglar or murderer, 
yet nothing excuses him from the effort and the 
peril of the encounter. Men with the mighty 
inspirations of a noble cause may chase each his 
thousand, but if they fall, their blood shall fight 
the battle on. Is there not recreant meanness 
when men fear to do and dare with God and all 
that Is good on their side? 

But states may not, cannot, be coerced. The 
fact that States are in rebellion is a supposition, 
not a fact. But if it were so, what? Can a state 
make wrong right? May not a state be punished 
just as much as the Individual man? Can it not 
be brought to terms? That Is a matter of 
strength to be better pronounced upon after trial. 
The probability is that, other things being equal, 
the stronger power will enforce its requirements. 

But this touches not the facts in the case. So 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 21 

far as can be ascertained not more than one state 
Is yet by the legitimate vote of the people In re- 
bellion with the federal government. 

What power on earth but that government can 
reach and free from oppression and coercion Its 
own willing subjects? Terrorism and misrepre- 
sentation are all the nerve and power of this in- 
surrection. Does God absolve us from this serv- 
ice of duty and mercy? The forcible dissolution 
of this union will leave a wound by which the 
passion part will bleed to death, the dissolution 
that the south sought to be carried by foul and 
violent means, will plunge a loyal majority, loyal 
if they might speak In virtue of all the facts in 
the case, into untold calamities. The world 
knows and we conclude from the information 
we receive that a majority of the people of the 
seceded states know that with the union the south 
loses all. So that out of pity to good men and 
true, out of compassion for our brethren who 
have been wickedly wrought up to hate us, God 
calls us to go as we only can go now In armies 
and tell the loyal men of the South that we love 
them still, that we came to join hands and hearts 



22 HOW ONE CHURCH 

with them against a common enemy. Fail in this 
duty and henceforth we are two maimed, hating 
and warring nations. Do we not already see 
something of the outcome of this wise policy, 
which the bayonet only can carry out? Maryland 
is saved. Missouri is saved. Kentucky we trust 
is doing well. Even Virgini^a is being reclaimed. 
Our brethren in Tennessee, fearfully environed 
and beset, are struggling manfully. With these 
indications apparent, we scout the miserable twad- 
dle about the coercion of States, and the mischief 
of the war, and believe it is the voice of divine 
wisdom which calls upon us to give to the gov- 
ernment men and means to enable it to do its duty 
of defense, protection and enforcement of the 
laws. The gate through which the true and last- 
ing peace must come is to be opened by force. 
These daring mischief makers must die or go into 
exile. An overwhelming military force only is 
sufficient to enforce that decree. Become special 
policemen for a while till the mob is dispersed, 
employ your individual influence and resources 
for the good cause or never use or claim the 
services of law or officer. He that cannot help 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 23 

his country in the time of her trouble deserves not 
her protection and help in the day of his own 
trouble. Such as he are given over of the Angel 
of the Lord to the curse of God. 

Have we not further intimation that this foul 
rebellion should not succeed but be suppressed in 
the fact that God has made us one people? This 
was the original ordination. Common language 
and faith, common sympathies and trials and in- 
terest, by these God made of us the United States 
of America. Since then we have learned how 
strongly by ocean and wind and lakes and river 
we are bound together in geographical unity; na- 
ture not only affords no natural boundary for two 
nations, but will not suffer her bonds of union 
to be broken. And besides this, steam and tele- 
graph have done away with the dissevering influ- 
ences of distance and time. So joined are the States 
in one nationality, nothing but the most unnatural 
and violent influences can pronounce disruption. 
And were this effected, there is every probability 
that the continuance of that condition would be 
uninterrupted warfare. Thus we read in all 
these signs the decrees of nature and providence, 



24 HOW ONE CHURCH 

that the union must be preserved and the laws 
enforced, though it cost, as all high duty does, 
a great price. Further, do we not recognize God 
in all this wonderful and unlooked-for move- 
ment about us? Who hath brought light out of 
the darkness, strength out of weakness, harmony 
out of discord? It is the Lord Almighty alone 
that with the signs of the times is writing out 
the promise of our salvation. 

Month after month all things seemed to be 
going wrong, so complicated were our affairs and 
so hopelessly deranged, that men all confessed 
themselves unable to see any way of escape. As 
never before the party of the nation despaired of 
human dependence and turned unto the Lord, and 
He, out of the weakness and folly and the wick- 
edness of man, at length caused a word to go 
forth that in one way made timely millions of 
apparently demoralized and divided people to 
spring to their feet as one man, forgetting all 
their animosities, thrilling with one and the same 
new-born resolve and hope and love, seeing eye 
to eye, working hand to hand, brethren as they 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 25 

never were before. This Is Indeed the Lord's 
work and It Is marvelous In our eyes. 

The governors willingly offered themselves 
among the people. Except where traitors had 
poisoned the air and deceived the hearts of the 
people, did the children of the Republic fall to 
respond to her call, "Vox popull, vox del"? It 
is of God this marvelous uprising, he Is caUIng 
us to his help — to his help against the Mighty. 

Finally we recognize this call for devotion to 
the nation to be that of God, because most brief, 
effectual, and least harmful war will come of the 
most formidable demonstration of military force. 
Let countless bayonets fill the hearts of traitors 
with consternation. Help the government to 
show by brave, enthusiastic armies how strong 
she Is and how summarily she can punish; help 
her to show to her now weak and oppressed 
children that she is able still to protect them. For 
the very dread of war and Its great calamities 
make the authorities so formidable that none shall 
venture war. 

God be praised under his lead that we are 
going to do our duty as loyal Christian citizens. 



26 ONE CHURCH 

Thus we will write law and liberty in plainer char- 
acters upon the field of our noble flag, and cause 
it to wave evermore over our broad land, a 
symbol of terror to the rebellious, a joy, a glory, 
and a refuge true and sure for the loyal and 
the free. 



A SERMON 

Preached August i8, i86i. 

And it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the 
people go, that God led them not through the way 
of the land of the Philistines, although that was 
near; for God said. Lest peradventure the people 
repent when they see war, and they return to 
Egypt. But God led the people about, through 
the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. 

In sacred history the two elements of affairs 
are seen working along together. There appears 
the thought of God and the thought of man. The 
works of .God and the works of man. Profane or 
uninspired records present only the human side. 
Hence the vast superiority of the Bible as a means 
of gathering practical wisdom from the past. In 
the one case the Lord is present declaring his will 
and expressing his approval or disapprobation by 
the prosperous or adverse course of events; in the 
other, man is magnified, human conduct passes 

27 



28 HOW ONE CHURCH 

unchallenged, and vicissitudes of fortune remain 
greatly unexplained. While there is this great 
difference between inspired and uninspired narra- 
tive, yet there is thrown a general interpretation 
upon all human events and action from the reve- 
lations of sacred history. In connection with in- 
dividuals and national history there are declara- 
tion and illustration of the principles of the divine 
will and government in the world. God has given 
us a key by which the mysterious hieroglyphics of 
this ever-changeful world life may be at least in 
part interpreted. In the old Bible story there 
rests forever the light of the mind of God. This 
is the light by which all our ideas must be tested, 
where the true and the false are made apparent. 
It is a kind and gracious provision of God that 
in great exigencies, in time of doubt and fear, 
when the great world is convulsed and men feel 
that they are making history and making way 
for the time to come; that then they may read 
out the waymarks of righteousness and salva- 
tion from a God-given chart of this human 
life. The Bible, thank God, is an all-sufficient 
storehouse of wisdom for all possible vicissitudes 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 29 

of time. In the Scriptures there are counsels 
goodly and divine and confirming and encourag- 
ing, as well as admonitory for these solemn and 
distressing times. Happy are we If hereunto 
we find day by day our dally bread, If In the try- 
ing weeks we live upon the fitly adapted word of 
God. 

By the printing of our text we turn our 
thoughts to the time when God made Israel a 
nation. A family, the chosen seed, went into 
Egypt, In the disintegrated, unorganized condi- 
tion of servitude they continued there, till by the 
hand of Moses they went forth, proud, marshaled 
and self-directed, to enter upon their natural 
career as the peculiar people of the Lord. By 
mighty signs and wonders their deliverance was 
wrought. God in clearest manner called them, 
and set them on their way toward the land prom- 
ised to their fathers. With power and favor, with 
help and hindrance, with salvation and distinc- 
tion, God drew a line of wide and everlasting 
separation between the children of bondage and 
their proud and hard oppressors. Around the 
exodus there seems to gather a word and power 



30 HOW ONE CHURCH 

of divine adoption sufficient to bind the graciously 
befriended people unto everlasting faith and 
obedience. 

There in the first outset from Egypt it had 
been easy to venture the prophecy that it were 
in the will of man and the purpose of God, that 
the shortest and most expeditious route should be 
taken to the land of promise. And this, if we 
may so speak, appears to have been the divine 
preference. The direct way was avoided by the 
command of God, lest they should see war and 
through fear turn back again to Egypt. Safe be- 
yond the Red Sea, Israel receives the law from 
Sinai, and those special directions that were pur- 
posed to distinguish them from every other na- 
tion. A year passes and the people of God stand 
upon the threshold of their promised inheritance 
and rest. Men are sent to search the land, all 
things are ready for the desired consummation. 
Egypt is forgotten and the wilderness is passed. 
Floods of milk and honey and wonders invite 
them to the grand heritage of their long-cherished 
hopes. But even according as the Lord had 
spoken, the people see war, are smitten down with 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 31 

apprehensions of the giant that is in the land 
and their weak hearts turn back towards their 
miserable bondage again. In the gloom of the 
hour they murmured, "Would God that we had 
died in the land of Egypt or would God we had 
died in the wilderness." "And wherefore hath 
the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by 
the sword, that our wives and our children should 
be a prey? Were it not better for us to return 
into Egypt?" In vain did Moses and Aaron fall 
on their faces before all the assembly of the con- 
gregation of the children of Israel. In vain did 
Joshua and Caleb, who had searched the land, 
rend their clothes, and plead, saying, "The land 
which we passed through to search is an exceed- 
ing good land. If the Lord delight in us, then 
he will bring us into this land, and give it to us, 
a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only 
rebel ye not against the Lord, neither fear ye 
the people of the land; for they are bread for 
us; their defense is departed from them, and the 
Lord is with us; fear them not." All the congre- 
gation bade stone them with stones. Therefore, 
the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle 



32 HOW ONE CHURCH 

of the Congregation before all the children of 
Israel. And the anger of the Lord broke forth. 
"How long will this people provoke me? How 
long will it be before they believe me, for all the 
signs which I have showed among them? I will 
smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit 
them, and I will make of thee a greater nation 
and mightier than they." 

Thus heavily fell the indignation of the Lord. 
Then the people repented, saying, "So, we be 
here, and will go up into the place which the Lord 
hath promised, for we have sinned." But it was 
too late, the mischief was accomplished. Moses 
answered, "Wherefore now do ye transgress the 
commandment of the Lord? But it shall not 
prosper. Go not up, for the Lord is not among 
you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies, 
because ye are turned away from the Lord, there- 
fore the Lord would not be with you." Yet they 
persisted and went up to battle, but were smit- 
ten before the enemy. Backward they turned in 
defeat, back to the wilderness to wander and to 
die. What a day of grief, anguish and shame 
was that; humbled before God and their enemies, 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 33 

they enter the forty years of their first great na- 
tional calamity. This is a remarkable passage of 
sacred history and it has its important lessons. 

I. There is here set before us one of the 
necessary conditions of national existence. The 
divinely imposed obligation of asserting its author- 
ity and of making its way by force when opposed, 
or in other words the duty of facing war. 

This was a new thing to the children of Israel. 
Hitherto they had been only slaves, held only to 
the responsibility of toil. They had taken no 
part in national affairs. The management of the 
state was in other hands. Brick-making had been 
the great necessity of their subordinated and un- 
organized condition. But now they had been 
given a place among the nations of the earth. 
Power had been conferred upon them, for self- 
government and self-defense and self-assertion. 

The responsibihty of braving and overcoming 
opposition great, grave and dreadful was im- 
posed upon them. Thus it clearly appears, for 
with all the great interposition of the Lord in 
their behalf, God in the plagues of Egypt, God 
in the overthrow of the pursuing enemy, God in 



34 HOW ONE CHURCH 

the miraculous provisioning of their wilderness 
march, God in the guiding pillar of cloud and 
fire, they were not relieved of the duty and the 
perils of warfare. It was the purpose of Him 
who had called his people out of Egypt that they 
should occupy the already inhabited land of 
Canaan. He that overwhelmed the hosts of 
Pharaoh could have swept it clean, and made it 
ready for the peaceful occupation of his people, 
all the land that he ordained for their inheritance. 
The sword of the Lord could have cleared the 
way, he could have led them so that they should 
not see war in its threatening and its horrors at 
all. But this it did not please him to do. He made 
them a nation and gave them the sword to bear. 
If their rightful way was obstructed, they must 
hew it clear by force. They had come where the 
next onward step towards the fulfillment of their 
desires and the divine purposes was war, severe 
and bloody strife. It was an exceedingly good 
land, and God bade them enter in and possess it. 
But a strong people dwelt in the land, and the 
cities were walled and very great and there were 
the giant sons of Anak. Against this formidable 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 35 

opposition they were to cast themselves and pay 
a price of blood before entering into rest and 
abundance. To us the pathway of their duty is 
very clear. With firm faith in God, fully per- 
suaded that he was with them, they with one 
heart should have exclaimed with Caleb, "Let us 
go up at once and possess it; for we are well able 
to overcome it." 

II. Illustration of national temptation in the 
face of war. 

The duty of the children of Israel at this time 
was to obey the voice of God and to take council 
of nothing else whatever. They were to do with- 
out hesitation or doubt what obedience require'd. 
But with war in the path it was hard to go on. 
There was the great and strong argument that 
ever appeals to human sympathies. War Is in- 
conceivably dreadful. The woes and the pains of 
the horrible battle work none can look upon un- 
moved. No easier was it to the people of three 
thousand years ago to wrestle with the apprehen- 
sion or the reality of a state of warfare than for 
ourselves. Experience teaches us the force of this 
appeal. Besides, the odds were against them. 



36 HOW ONE CHURCH 

They were a nation of Colonies, they had never 
been skilled or disciplined to the use of arms. The 
temptation was here to look on the human side, 
and there were great grounds for the apprehen- 
sion that they would be vanquished and suffer 
all the calamities of total defeat. Their dark 
forebodings are shadowed forth in their despond- 
ent cry, "Wherefore hath the Lord brought us 
into this land to fall by the sword, that our wives 
and our children should be a prey; were it not 
better for us to return into Egypt?" 

Anything is preferable to war — bondage, 
death in Egypt, death in the wilderness. No good 
can come of it, only evil. So the multitude rea- 
soned and they thought they reasoned well; they 
were ready to stone any man, even the godhest 
of them all, even Moses and Aaron and Caleb 
and Joshua, who dared to urge courageous, en- 
ergetic, immediate guiding to the battle. The 
temptation of fear was so great, the reasoning of 
apprehension was so strong, that God and the 
pointing of duty was well-nigh lost to sight. 
Those who believed that this was a matter of 
right and wrong to be settled at a higher tri- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 37 

bunal than that of mere human sympathies 
and human fears consisted of just four men. 
They withstood the temptation, Moses and 
Aaron and Joshua and Caleb, not because they 
were less human and not because they de- 
lighted in the scenes of blood, but because they 
knew there could be something worse even than 
war, yea, because they believed that when duty 
and God demanded it there was nothing better 
than to go out to do valiantly in the name of the 
Lord, therefore they expostulated with the panic- 
stricken, murmuring and falling multitude, say- 
ing, "Rebel not yet against the Lord, neither fear 
ye the people of the land, for they are bread for 
us, their defense is departed from them, and the 
Lord is with us, fear them not." But the temp- 
tation prevailed, anything is better than war, 
swept down all opposition. We see it to have been 
a temptation. They thought they were wise for 
the time. They thought they were pleading for 
humanity. They thought not that they were dis- 
regarding the waymarks of God. 

in. We look on a nation's fall. Israel for- 
got God, remembered not his wondrous words 



38 WENT THROUGH A WAR 

and works. Through fear of the enemy, for lack 
of nerve or heart for stern duty, she drew upon 
herself the fierce wrath of God. The sin was 
fear to fight, dread of war, low. Inadequate con- 
ception of human affairs. How fierce the outburst 
of divine indignation! How long shall this peo- 
ple provoke me? How long will it be ere they 
believe me, for all the signs which I have showed 
among them? I will smite them with pestilence 
and disinherit them. And all this on the human 
side, because the people judged it prudent to 
avoid a war and retreat into the wilderness. Be- 
cause they did not see what good could come of 
fighting, because forsooth they were good, quiet, 
yielding, peaceful men, because they counted the 
cost of war and pronounced it the greatest evil 
of the world. 

This on the one side, but on the other because 
they took not high council of God, because they 
ignored all the higher and nobler obligations, be- 
cause they saw not something of more worth than 
life, because they were not willing to sacrifice 
themselves for the attainment of that blessing 
which God had put before them, for their chil- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 39 

dren forever, because they were so unequal to 
their duty and their opportunity, therefore was 
it counted unto them as their grievous trans- 
gressions. 

IV. A nation grievously punished. What are 
the burning words of indignation which Moses 
the Mediator hears? What causes his anguished 
expostulation? What fixes the final decree which 
sends the wanderers back into the wilderness to 
die? What forfeits Canaan to a generation, and 
withholds it from the people forty years? What 
checks prosperous advance? What disappoints 
the nation's brightest hopes? What draws down 
misfortune, calamities, heart-crushing reverses? 
Wherefore this disastrous condition of affairs? 
This is the grievous punishment, this is the reward 
of transgression. Dread of war was the tempta- 
tation, faithless faltering was the sin; even as the 
Lord foresaw it, they saw war, repented and 
turned back. 

V. How speedily was the irreparable mischief 
accomplished. Great opportunity, the time for 
duty is exceeding short. At the stern and wrath- 
ful words of the Lord, Israel repents, sways her- 



40 HOW ONE CHURCH 

self up once more in the remembrance of God, is 
ready to dare and to do. But it is too late, the 
doors are shut. Unbelief has done its work of 
cursing. Though they go up to the battle, now 
God is not with them. They are vanquished, 
crushed and broken in spirit, they set their faces 
towards the great and terrible wilderness. 

To sum up the moral of this Scripture is that 
great war sometimes disputes the progress of a 
nation, the good land is beyond it, temptation is 
before it; the wilderness of the curse of God re- 
ceives the people that falter before the great, stern 
duty of the hour. 

Are we a people in the temptation of beholding 
war to-day? 

Our fathers under favor of Heaven escaped 
out of foreign bondage, and were constituted a 
nation. They set their faces towards a better 
order of government than had yet been realized 
in the world. They escaped from Pharaoh and 
fought the first battle, but the great, final strug- 
gle beyond which is the political Canaan, the land 
of largest liberty and strongest order, has 
been reserved for us. The great triumph of lib- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 41 

eral institutions is yet to be consummated. A 
mighty rebellion has risen in the land, a most 
wicked and unjustifiable rebellion, and it has set 
up before Itself the front of most formidable war. 
Now no God-fearing, loyal man can honor au- 
thority, or authorities, none of us can pray for our 
rulers, as we are commanded to do, no man can 
discharge the full duty of a good citizen, except he 
prays towards successful warfare, except he does a 
part of that work which is made complete, in 
the destruction of the armies of the rebellion with 
sword, bayonet, cannon, the most tremendous and 
effectual managing of force. It is a temptation 
of the devil to cry peace in the faces of the sup- 
porters of this government as if they had the 
pov/er of peace. They have it by only one way, 
the way that Israel had to get Into the promised 
land, to conquer it. What If the sight of this 
fearful struggle almost breaks us down, what if 
many reason in fearfulness, that they are many 
and strong, what If we even stand to the enemy as 
the timid brickmakers of Egypt, to the giant of 
Anak. What if on the human side the chances of 
success are all against us, still we may not hesi- 



42 HOW ONE CHURCH 

tate. Then did Israel and others sin and were 
dreadfully punished. 

On this people must go, without fear, with high 
faith, that this is the way and that God is with 
them. The hour has come. But it is not yet fully 
apparent whether the councils of Moses and 
Caleb will prevail or whether the fearful cry of 
a false, wicked and fatal peace will prevail, 
whether the nation in its might will go forward 
or turn backward, whether after victory we shall 
have rest and security in the good land, or whether 
we fall back into the wilderness of anarchy and 
misrule. 

Will the people have heart to put forth the 
adequate earnestness and tremendous energy, nec- 
essary to destroy the great power of lawlessness 
that has put itself in the way? Tearfulness and 
falling is the great sin, death, destruction of gov- 
ernment, and a wilderness of woes the penalty. 
Duty is forceful restoration of order, the destruc- 
tion of the enemies of peace and the state, and 
the reward, a government more like unto God 
than any the world has known, both gracious and 
strong. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 43 

Let It be remembered that exhortations for 
peace are for traitors and not for loyal men, that 
anything but faithful, forceful, just dealing with 
rebels Is wrong, that all appeals to the sympathies 
of nature or to our fears are to be resisted and 
overthrown by firm, strict, stern adherence to duty 
and faith in God. 

Be courageous, firm, keep rank, go on, fear not 
the multitude or the giants. Let not the Bible 
be turned against you; are not men of God men 
of war, when duty and God bid them fight? 

The people that would not fight excited the 
indignation of the Lord so that he was tempted 
to destroy them all and make a greater nation of 
the man Moses, who exerted his utmost Influence, 
urging a forceful entrance Into Canaan. 

If our government comes crippled out of this 
war to a miserable compromise with traitors. If it 
stand beyond the struggle otherwise than glori- 
ous, stronger than ever, it will be because through 
fearfulness and effeminacy or worse reason the 
people have denied a fair sympathy and support. 



A SERMON 

Preached Thanksgiving, November, 1862. 

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye 
lands; serve the Lord with gladness; come before 
his presence with singing. Know that the Lord 
he is God; It is he that hath made us, and not 
we ourselves; we are his people and the sheep 
of his pasture. 

Enter Into his gates with thanksgiving and unto 
his courts with praise, be thankful unto him and 
bless his name. 

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange 
land? cried the captive bands of ZIon as they 
wept by the waters of Babylon, remembering in 
their grievous bondage Jerusalem desolate and 
friends and children mingled with the dead. 

So now, while the Lord has covered our ZIon 
with a cloud and cast her down from heaven into 
the earth, while all that pass by hiss and wag 
their heads, saying, "Is this the land that men call 

44 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 45 

The Perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole 
earth." This is the day we looked for, we have 
found it, we have seen it, while decimated con- 
gregations and vacant places in the home circles 
are telling so touchingly and sadly of the many 
dear ones absent or dead. This festal hour 
hallowed and clustered about by so many precious 
associations and memories, turns with mute but 
moving tongue, to recount how much is wanting, 
how much Is lost. Yea, the flower of our land 
and the idols of our hearts are languishing in the 
dreary hospital or toiling on the forced march, 
or it may be worshiping where the incense is the 
rolling war cloud; the music Is the rifle's sharp 
rattle and the bursting shell and the cannon's sullen 
boom; and the offering is blood and life; while 
in the troublous and agonizing thought of the 
hour, there cometh up the thought, "How can we 
sing the Lord's song to-day?" 

Yet this is the old Thanksgiving day of our 
fathers, they kept It well through all their stormy 
and troubled lives. We wipe away the tears, and 
we quell our fears, and come before the Lord 
with singing. We will enter into his gates with 



46 HOW ONE CHURCH 

thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; we 
will be thankful unto him and bless his name, for, 
if we will consider, we can still sing of the mercy 
and judgment of the Lord. 

Before turning to a review of the year, it be- 
comes us to call to mind the fact, thus nationwise 
or individually, all our good is by the grace and 
mercy of the Lord, and all the evil we know, far 
less than our deserving, and this also, that what- 
ever we may see favorable or desirable is God, 
shaping, ordering. Thus first we remember our 
place as offenders, and take human offers as the 
expression of God's overruling will. 

Of all the broad, fertile garden of our loyal 
land, the record of the year may be thus noted 
down. "Thou, Lord, hast visited the earth and 
watered it. Thou didst greatly enrich it with the 
river of God which is full of water; thou pre- 
paredst corn when thou hadst so provided for it, 
thou wateredst the earth thereof abundantly; 
thou settledst the furrows thereof; thou madest it 
soft with showers; thou blessedst the springing 
thereof; thou crownedst the year with thy good- 
ness and thy paths dropped fullness. The pas- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 47 

tures were clothed with flocks; the valleys also 
were covered over with corn; they shout for joy, 
they also sing." Our barns are filled, affording all 
manner of store. Happy is that people that is in 
such a case. Ah, we need to hear famishing 
little ones pleading in vain for bread, in the 
fearful winter of famine, to realize how precious 
and good is the gift of God in a plentiful har- 
vest. The granaries of the land are full, for this 
praise the Lord, praise the Lord. 

We will not forget to give thanks to God that 
no pestilential breath has been sent upon our 
cities and towns; the healthfulness of our vast 
armies, many of them in very exposed locali- 
ties, has been wonderful. The hope and the 
prayer of the enemy has been that this angel of 
God's wrath would come down and fight for them 
with the resistless subtle sword of destruction, but 
while the dreaded fever has made ravages on the 
southern soil, there have been defenses that we will 
ascribe to the Lord around about our camps. The 
oft death laden air of southern coast and river 
hath breathed with friendliness on the champions 
of national order. The Norfolk of '53 was not 



48 HOW ONE CHURCH 

the Norfolk of 1620, for this we give most 
hearty thanks unto him who tempers all the winds 
of heaven. 

It becomes us also to be devoutly grateful that 
the industries, the work of the nation, which is 
the daily bread of the million, has been so lit- 
tle disturbed by the gigantic civil war which is 
going on. Though the waves of martial forces 
are gathering and breaking with fearful shock 
along a line of a thousand miles, the toll of 
the supportive labor of the land is steady and 
firm. We are menaced with no enforced idleness, 
with its train of terrible destitution and suffering. 
The country is full of bread, and all accommo- 
dating business is passing it around to every 
mouth. The strange phenomenon appears of a 
nation lightly supporting a gigantic war in its 
midst which is paralyzing the labor and commerce 
of nations three thousand miles away. 

Again we are devoutly thankful to God this 
day for the wonderfully sustained spirit and the 
loyal states. This hitherto hath saved us from 
the incalculable calamity of political dissolution 
and anarchy. A government of acknowledged 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 49 

authority is arbiter supreme in the midst of 
ten thousand conflicting interests, a defense of 
the weak, a concentration of the popular will un- 
der the guidance of truth and justice, is an insti- 
tution of priceless value. For Its conservation 
blood and treasure may be poured out almost 
to any amount, for without an acknowledged 
authority there Is no security for life or posses- 
sions. Whatever the design of this great re- 
bellion, its success is not merely the forcible 
withdrawal of so many states from the union, 
but a mortal wound to constitutional authority. If 
it is a revelation of the fact that law Is no longer 
supreme, then it may be state against state, sec- 
tion against section, party against party, aye, man 
against man, not by appeal to justice and reason, 
by gentle and peaceful methods, but by appeal to 
brutal, bloody violence. The action of the uncor- 
rupted American people for the last year, accord- 
ing to this standpoint, furnishes one of the sub- 
llmest spectacles in history. What Is It? A pas- 
sionless devotion of their all to the support of 
a principle. We feel safe in the assertion that 
a great people never fought a great war so free 



50 HOW ONE CHURCH 

from the spirit of anger. Yet withal the national 
heart has shown no faltering in the face of mul- 
tiplying and enlarging difficulties, delays, disap- 
pointments, defeats, and the threatening of most 
formidable hostile collisions. After the 75,000 
went the 500,000 men, and after the 500,000, 
50,000 more, and after the 50,000 went the vol- 
unteers, 300,000 more, and after them there have 
just gone up 300,000 soldiers more, making in 
all for the period of about a year and a half 
almost a million and a half of men; besides these 
untold thousands more have manned the fleets and 
gone to defend and to conquer on the coasts and 
the paths of the great rivers. So many in the 
land had the heart to go and offer themselves as 
a living sacrifice if need be on the altar of their 
country; and the fathers and mothers, the wives 
and the children, the brothers and sisters, had 
the heart to send them forth or let them go. Yea, 
the great mass of this people of an unwarlike and 
peaceful race and aged by word and work, have 
thus been holding steadily on from month to month 
in the inflexible purpose of defending and vindi- 
cating the government of their fathers. Allowed 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 51 

that all Is not the purest gold of patriotism, take 
into notice the luke-warm zeal, and the opposi- 
tion, yet withal how good a thing is it that so 
many great states have stood so well and so 
strongly together, under such a pressure and at 
such a costliness. Thank God for this bulwark 
around liberty and law. This hath indeed been 
a year of great hardship, of suffering, of sorrow, 
stern, rugged, living it hath been, but it hath 
been one of the most heroic and noble of the 
years of the Republic. Corruption and wickedness 
and weakness have indeed been thrown to the 
light by the great seams which tremendous con- 
vulsions of the times are opening, yet the demands 
of the day have found the men and the women 
that make nations great and strong and noble; 
ever it is in this world that the best and noblest 
works are done in grief and pain. For the great 
offering that the men and the women of the land 
have had the heart to lay upon the altar of their 
country, we praise Him in whose hands are the 
hearts of all the children of men. We call to 
mind to-day, as we review the year, that while 
putting forth such effort to quell this most un- 



52 WENT THROUGH A WAR 

natural and desperate rebellion, a strange ma- 
lignity has frowned upon us from foreign lands. 
The complication of affairs and the temper of 
times Is such that we cannot but most fervently 
thank the Lord that we are yet preserved from 
a war Into which would go such desperate and 
tremendous energies and passions and out of 
which peace would not come till there had been 
tribulation such as has not been since the begin- 
ning of the world. (War with England would be 
a war of all passion, of pride, of hate, of re- 
venge.) (The Lord give her still the grace of 
tolerable decency, the Lord lead us not further 
into temptation.) The combined navies of 'two 
of the leading powers of the world have seemed 
ready for months to be let loose upon our too 
defenseless shores, and to unequal conflict with 
our gallant and devoted navy, but the Lord hath 
held them back thus far while rising fortifications, 
heavy guns and formidable Ironclads are multi- 
plying potent arguments for keeping the peace. 

Again, success has attended our arms. One 
year ago and the martial line of rebellion was 
advanced very near the borders of the free states. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 53 

The pressure of our armies has crowded this line 
backward to the borders of the gulf states at 
the west, while the most Important points upon 
the coast have been repossessed and held In a 
resistless grasp. With the mixed fortunes and 
unexpected protraction of the struggle for Rich- 
mond, we almost forget the evacuation of Colum- 
bia, and Bowling Green, the fall of Fort Henry 
and Fort Donaldson, the capture of No. 10, the 
repossession of proud Nashville and pestilent 
Memphis, the victories of Pea Ridge and Shiloh, 
the important and successful operations upon the 
Atlantic coast, which have raised the glorious old 
flag over Norfolk and Portsmouth, Newbern and 
Macon, Pulaski and Port Royal, that daring and 
gallant enterprise which gave us back the great 
metropolis of the southwest. All in all, it has 
been a year of success. Another twelve months 
of such pressure would utterly crush and destroy 
the power of the rebellion. The work is much 
larger than was thought when It was undertaken, 
but it Is being steadily accomplished. Here is 
great reason to give thanks to the God of bat- 
tles for the victories which through our people, 



54 HOW ONE CHURCH 

and our army and our navy, He has organized for 
us, and especially that He hath Inspired the nation 
unto that vast preparation of military and naval 
power, which Is but now making a fresh and 
simultaneous movement upon every army and 
every stronghold In the revolted territory. 

Yea, for the fortunate, wholesome and the well- 
timed reverses that have In the course of events 
been made to arouse and forewarn the nation of 
the threatening danger; thus the occasions of fu- 
ture triumphs, and for the wooden gunboats that 
relieved the disaster of Pittsburgh, for the ap- 
pearance of the little but Inconquerable Monitor 
In the Chesapeake, to turn the fortunes when our 
men-of-war were being crushed In like shells, and 
sent to the bottom or driven aground. For these 
striking Interpositions, we give thanks unto the 
disposer of all events. But there is another and 
devout rejoicing for to-day. 

Under whatever disguise he may appear, we 
know that the devil which is so grievously excit- 
ing all the broad land Is the cruel, abominable and 
hateful system of human slavery. Thus poisoning 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 55 

the minds of the people, slavery has rent this 
great nation asunder. The champions of human 
bondage smote at the government and stirred up 
this most calamitous strife. Well, It is good at 
this stage of affairs, however other things may go, 
that there are most Incontestable evidences that 
slavery is being destroyed. This has been a year 
of jubilee to unnumbered thousands of the chil- 
dren of bondage. And what Is more than the 
emancipation of a few, slavery has lost friends 
this year. The war has levied most effectually 
upon the nature of the system and has made con- 
verts like the drops of the morning dew. Fifty 
years of assallment by reason, argument, moral 
suasion could not have achieved what the stern, 
resistless lag of war has effected In a few short 
months. The great Missouri is virtually an anti- 
slavery state to-day, and there is conclusive indi- 
cation that Kentucky and Tennessee and western 
Virginia and Maryland and Delaware will soon 
reconstruct their politics on the great Issue of 
freedom or slavery, with the first vote in the 
glorious cause of emancipation. We have lived 
fast of late or we had not come to see the en- 



S6 HOW ONE CHURCH 

slaved of Kansas represented in the Congress of 
the United States by anti-slavery men. This is 
not all, in about thirty days more the law of this 
land will be liberal as never before. Near a mil- 
lion of men in heavy battalions and in the panoply 
of war will move on, on the great crusade of 
freedom, bearing and enforcing the grand procla- 
mation of the first president of free America to 
the millions who with unwilling hands are uphold- 
ing this great rebellion. 

Was it so that heaven could not tolerate the 
slow removal by peaceful means of this worst 
of all villainies, but suffered it to provoke beyond 
endurance a nation in arms that it might, as it 
were, be destroyed in a day? Oh, it is good to 
see this hideous monster recoil from the encounter 
which he has provoked, it is good to watch his 
flowing blood, it is good to see him making ready 
to die. How different this than if a free state 
had fallen under the domination of slavery. The 
battle is going for the right. Yea, we rejoice 
to welcome the time when the Republic shall be 
liberty and not a lie. The day is advancing when 
many a waiting Simon shall cry, "Lord, now let- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 57 

test thou thy servant depart In peace for mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation." 

But I will detain you only by one or two sug- 
gestions further. 

Let us not forget this day that there have been 
great dangers and wars unsuspected and unseen, 
from which our God hath kindly and mercifully 
preserved us, during this solemn and eventful 
year. Could we retrace the pathway through 
which the nation has passed, with all Its sur- 
roundings and possibilities, we should doubtless 
be filled with wondering, trembling and most pro- 
found gratitude to God, for his protecting and 
guiding care. We should see doubtless what a 
little thing, how many times would have brought 
disaster, and how many times little things and 
great things in the providence of God saved us. 
We may be sure great grace unseen has been 
mingled Into our national affairs. By the salva- 
tion of the Lord we stand to-day far more than 
we think. O forget not that our ship of state 
has a piloting that regards breakers and shoals, 
and a thousand dangers that no human eye ever 
detects. The holy faith of our fathers was that 



58 HOW ONE CHURCH 

the keeper of the nation is the Lord. 

Finally, our religion, all that we learn from 
it of the economy of God In the affairs of the 
world gives us the assurance, that every troublous 
time, every great and grievous crisis Is big with 
unexplained blessing to the future. The light of 
the world and of eternity to mankind was born 
of the darkest day in the history of time, the 
crucifixion of Jesus, the bright day comes of the 
stormiest night. Life begins in the suffering hour. 

Therefore be ye not troubled when ye hear of 
wars, for these things must needs be. These com- 
motions are transition times. In them old things 
pass away and all things become new. Yet men 
are apt to be terrified and despondent at the griev- 
ous present, and forgetful that God is even there 
and thus at work bringing in some better day. 
Just what It may be we cannot say, but It Is a 
part of our faith in our God to believe that this 
great war will bring good to the nation that In 
no other way could come, and good commensu- 
rate with its costliness. For this precious faith 
that makes all evil prophetic of coming good, that 
transmutes the cost and suffering of this sad 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 59 

day to a far more exceeding weight of gain and 
blessedness, we praise the Lord, for faith's hope- 
ful and glorious solution of our present great 
troubles, we sing aloud our thanksgiving song. 

Shall I touch upon a sudden and more tender 
theme, shall we speak of the noble beloved and 
fallen? The blood of our kindred hath reddened 
the war sod. Many an honored and useful and 
beloved one joined the rank of marshaling pa- 
triots to return no more except as the dead re- 
turn. In view of the sufferings of the camps and 
In view of the dreadful battle bolt, how many 
home heart strings are torn? The untimely fate, 
the hardships, the anxiety, the grief, of these 
things — what shall we say? 

Is this what I see? A rising thankfulness, sol- 
emn and strong, loftily towering above the wreck 
and grief of the present hour, with streaming, 
but courageous eyes fixed upon duty, counting 
humanity God, rendering subllmest, purest human 
praise. It says in suffering strength, "Let It not be 
changed." Recall not the early fallen, It Is well. 
The loss of precious life Is a living lamentation. 
But the generation shall not find to its utmost 



6o HOW ONE CHURCH 

limit a better, a nobler dying place or time or 
cause. For this are these dead blessed, honor 
and affection cherish the names which such a 
death hath sanctified. Call not the soldier back 
from his hard and perilous mission; he would not 
come. In his hours of faith, these sacrifices here, 
there, are a noble offering; blessed are they that 
can, that do render them. To this every right 
moral sense cries amen. 

Grief rejoices to-day that its blood was of such 
a temper to be stirred, of a temper to pour Itself 
out for something better than life. 

Honor to the cherished dead; courage and 
cheer to the unforgotten absent ones, sympathy 
for all the martyrs of the day. And for all this 
spirit, and life, and dying, give thanks unto God, 
for in such as this is the true excellence, the sal- 
vation and glory of our land. 

Yes, praise the Lord that though the foeman 
complains of scanty harvest, plenty has been 
poured over all the loyal states. Though mil- 
lions In foreign lands to whom work is daily 
bread, are thrown out of employment to depend- 
ence or starvation, all-sufficient business makes 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 6i 

hopeful provisions for passing the wintry season 
through. For this praise our God, because the 
angel of death hath breathed no angry all-wither- 
ing desolation in our borders or upon our great 
armies; praise the Lord, because the people have 
been vastly devoted, and courageous, hopeful and 
have given with such unanimity to the conversation 
of their government, for this, bless His name 
who commands the inspirations of the popular 
heart. 

Because of foreign foes kept in unavailing non- 
intervention, for keeping for us the peace of the 
great world in this great day of misfortune and 
exposure, because of this make mention of the 
great goodness of Him who rules the affairs of 
the nations. 

Because of the victories and this present vast 
organization for victory, praise the God of 
battles. 

Because the great curse and erring of our be- 
loved land Is getting his mortal thrust and is 
about to die, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, 
who suffered the fiend In his great passion to 
tempt his own seeming destruction. 



62 HOW ONE CHURCH 

Think of the unseen danger through which we 
have come and praise Him whose eye watcheth 
and whose hand guideth over the dark and dreary 
and stormy waters of national revolution. 

Go up on the watch tower of your holy faith 
and welcome the new nation, whose great cry is 
prophetic. Think of the day, so bright and in- 
spiring and good that God is about to flash upon 
this night and praise Him who moves in mysteri- 
ous ways His wonders to perform. 

Measure life from its true standpoint, and 
thank the Lord that for the lost, for the absent, 
for the sadness and grievousness of the present 
day all is well. 

The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice, yea, 
rejoice alway. 



ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES BENTON 

For none of us liveth to himself and no man 
dieth to himself. 

For whether we live we live unto the Lord; 
and whether we die we die unto the Lord; 
whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the 
Lord's. — Rom. xlv. 7-8. 

It is really true that all men are consciously 
living unto the Lord. In character of moral 
action, In a spirit of entire subserviency to God, 
Is all the world moving on. Are there none hold- 
ing themselves as their own and seeking their 
own? And are there none forgetting God and 
living for themselves? Surely It cannot be said 
In full, absolute, unconditional sense that no man 
llveth to himself, that all mankind In spirit and 
purpose are the Lord's, for It Is common to 
claim all of one's life, and all of attainable things 
as one's own, without condition. It Is common 
to put God out of all proprietorship or claim 

63 



64 HOW ONE CHURCH 

here. And it Is common to set action against 
the clearly proclaimed commandments of God. 
Much, much, oh, how much of the thinking, the 
willing and working of the human heart is selfish 
and wicked! What a warfare has been waged 
and is still kept up against those commandments 
which are only holy, just and good. What a 
controversy the generations of our race have 
maintained against the law and gospel given 
from God! Shall we then conclude from the 
lives of unbelieving, self-seeking and wicked men 
that the declaration of our text has substantial 
limitations? 

Shall we say that some men do take themselves 
out of the Lord's hands and withhold themselves, 
Hving and dying and furthermore from any sub- 
serviency to his will and purpose? No, this 
rather, that while here now in a measure a man 
may in his own consciousness and in the character 
of his actions live and die unsubordinated to God, 
yet the man is yet in the controUing and disposing 
hand of the Almighty, his living, his dying, are 
at the arbitration and purpose of another will 
than his own. Though a man may resist moral 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 65 

laws he is as nothing before the divine decree, the 
executive will. Pharaoh withstood the command 
of God, repeatedly hardening his heart, but with- 
al we see the life and the death of this great, 
proud and willful king were woven into the web 
of God. 

So the crucifixion of our Saviour was the most 
wicked and heaven-daring work of man's guilty 
hand, yet the life that killed the Holy One and 
just, this very crucifying will and force was made 
of God to bear onward, more than His creative, 
even His greater redemption glory. These cases 
are sufficient to show us that God has wisdom 
and power that can make wicked, unconsecrated 
life help on His grand designs and work His 
sovereign will. 

Perhaps here is to be found, as nearly as we 
can receive, the solution of the great problem of 
the permitted existence of evil in the universe. 

Why does God allow wicked life? Is it not 
worse than useless, an unmitigated curse? To 
those who will do it, yes, but, nevertheless, all the 
life and the death and the after-death of even 
wicked men, shall be made, like the sin of the 



66 HOW ONE CHURCH 

betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus, to glorify God 
and the work and kingdom of His grace. We 
think we see useless things in the material and 
moral world, yet must it not be a prerogative of 
infinite wisdom to turn everything to account? 
Here is some light for dark places. Are there 
wicked men, single handed or bound together, 
causing mighty mischief and plunging nations into 
dreadful sorrows? God has them yet in hand 
and He shall follow after them, make their wrath 
to praise Him, turn their curseful doings into 
some great future good, and, in the day which 
best befits God's beneficent purpose, they shall fall 
and die. Give the wicked into His hand. No 
man liveth to himself and no man dieth to him- 
self, but all, whether living or dying, are the 
Lord's. 

Yet while it is true that no man liveth unto 
himself or dieth unto himself, however much he 
may think or strive so to do, but is made, by the 
infinitely wise and great disposer of all events, 
who worketh all things according to the counsels 
of his own will, to subserve by his continuance 
in this world, by his departure out of it and his 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 67 

existence beyond It, the purposes and the glory of 
One, of whom he thinketh not, and for whom 
he careth not. While God Is wide around and 
high above, able to make all things praise Him, 
the declaration of this fact was made by the 
apostle in the text, to believe, and Is, therefore, 
not to be considered In the light of a general faith 
In God and of natural religion, but as related to 
the Christian faith and the Christian life. 

To those who are ready to receive it and happy 
to assent unto It, Paul said, None of us llveth 
unto himself and no man dieth unto himself. For 
whether we live we live unto the Lord; and 
whether we die we die unto the Lord; whether 
we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. 

They belong unto God, they were not their 
own. The highest purpose of their existence 
could not be found related only or chiefly to them- 
selves. They were pointed to something higher 
than life, to something nobler than self. The 
glory of God was the meaning of things. The 
reason of changes that should be ordained unto 
them. And thus the Lord was magnified not 
alone by creating right of supreme worth but 



68 HOW ONE CHURCH 

by virtue of the divine redemption in that Christ 
died and rose again that he might be Lord, both 
of the dead and the living. Creatureship and a 
most marvelous ransom purchase gave our every 
believing soul to be made unto the praise of the 
glory of the grace of God. Enough was seen 
and felt of the love of God, and the wisdom and 
the excellence of his plan and way, to make it the 
most favorable and desirable condition to be 
completely at his disposal. 

What order this faith of their Redeemer God, 
above all and in all, wrought with a seemingly 
chaotic wonder and chaotic life. 

Nothing seemed to keep time with every known 
throng or plan, the wisest arrangements of action 
were often frustrated, the living and the dying 
seemed at war with their order of well-doing, thus 
left alone to the management of themselves and 
the world, almost everything seemed in a dis- 
couraging confusion, but assured of the particu- 
lar providence and the all-embracing oversight of 
Him, their Saviour God, assured that all things, 
even all the living and the dying, did and would 
work perfectly into his beneficent and glorious 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 69 

plan. 

Thus they found great peace, hope and con- 
fidence towards God. But this was not all. 

The truth was used of the apostle In the form 
of an exhortation. The doctrine Is In all things 
bound to glorify God. Thus must the believer 
hold his life. He must strive to make It holy, 
and thus best to befit Its use of God. This Is 
the Ideal. All that belongs to existence has Its 
highest meaning and service In what God shall 
do with It. 

Be the spirit and action of life confirmed to 
the will of God by all endeavor. No man llveth 
to himself. Realize that consecration. Make 
the consciousness conform to the great fact. 

Then again make the glory of God the end of 
all things In personal Intent. 

Living and dying in its manner and time have 
reference In thought not to what may seem on 
the human side, but rest the control of these 
changes with Him who best knows the times and 
the seasons. 

Hereby is marked the course to Christian per- 
fection. All done and held as unto the Lord. 



70 HOW ONE CHURCH 

When from an acceptance of the doctrine to the 
writing of the doctrine In the heart and life a 
man has gone, the same Is become a perfect man 
In Christ Jesus. In the way there must be found 
dehverance from Impure and selfish motives. A 
getting at the answer of the prayer, "Not my 
will but thine be done." A readiness to give up 
all things even unto life, when that shall be re- 
quired. 

Though this realization of living and dying 
unto the Lord is the effort and the ever-to-be 
perfected work of the believer, It is the privi- 
lege of the soul from the first moment of its 
reconciliation to God by faith In the atonement 
of Jesus, to be apprehended as God's own child, 
thenceforward, everlastingly. Though in the in- 
firmity of the flesh. In the pressure of temptation, 
the man may be unequal and unjustifiable to his 
privilege and obligation, yet the Lord is ever 
faithful to his covenant. The adoption holds 
from the day of the first surrender to Jesus. 

It is from this standpoint let us consider the 
doctrine of our text, as setting forth the relation- 
ship of God to the believer. The authorized as- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 71 

surance of faith Is, "We are the Lord's," Hving 
or dying, we are the Lord's. 

L This then Is an assurance of divine guid- 
ance. The Lord will lead His own. The world 
to them as to all often seems a perplexing maze 
and the right way Is not clear; often the children 
of God may seem to themselves to be groping 
their way In the dark. 

But whatever It appears to themselves, an un- 
seen eye Is evermore guiding them, and wherever 
He most needs them and It Is best they should 
be, there they shall be found. They will be made 
to hear most pleasingly the voice that should call 
them. They will be made to feel most patiently 
the motives which should Influence them. They 
are the Lord's, for use, and this use all baptized 
In love. They shall live where their good Lord 
will, and they shall die where their Lord wills. 
All this matter hath particular direction of what 
a blessed assurance this is In respect to Christian 
friends, in respect to our unknown course in this 
bewildering world. Pass over days In the walks 
of peace, or find where our place is in the toilsome 
march, In the storm of battle, or in the trying 



72 HOW ONE CHURCH 

langulshment of the hospital, or In any place or 
condition in which God calls his own. It is the 
privilege of the people of God to know that with 
such experiences they should go. 

II. There is assurance here of God's unfailing 
care. If all this living and dying is with the Lord 
he will provide. 

Whatever of grace or strength the place or the 
condition shall demand, God will give unto His 
own. The life may appear exceedingly hard and 
bare; it may be amidst extreme hardships, and it 
may be far sundered from dearest fellowship. 
The comfort and strength that come of the heart 
and hand of earthly friendliness and love may 
be wanting. This, while life's hard battle is being 
fought on through dust and heat and weariness 
and dreariness, or this race loneliness while heart 
and flesh are failing, while the mortal faithful- 
ness comes on and the death dew gathers on the 
unsoothed brow, yet He, the best, the only effecual 
helper and provider is there. He it is that serveth 
as they struggle. So shall the struggle be and 
He is able and faithful to make it good. Friendly, 
overflowing human sympathy for the children of 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 73 

God in hardness of life or in apparent forsaken- 
ness and death is in danger of forgetting that He 
is there. Could we, with spirit eyes, look into 
the furnace of their affliction, we should see one 
like the Son of Man, with them living or dying; 
they are the Lord's. How much sweet peace with 
God, what precious powers of holy communion 
could the ways of this great war speak if they had 
a voice I Out of the dark places how the light of 
God is shining to angels' eyes ! Then what glori- 
ous visions of spiritual things have spanned ten 
thousand hard and dreary hospital couches, where 
the ever faithful one hath remembered his dying 
ones. Do we need to be reminded that He can 
be the all-sufficient minister of strength? Do we 
need to be reminded not to magnify our human 
instrumentality and not to dishonor the resources 
of divine love and power? Methlnks there 
comes up out of the great tribulation, as it were, 
many a triumphant voice, crying for the fulfill- 
ment of the promise, "Living or dying, we are 
the Lord's." 

Hereby let comfort be taken for those whom 
the providence of God, in this day of trial, have 



74 HOW ONE CHURCH 

for duty or suffering been sent far away from 
the blessedness of home and the services of affec- 
tion. Their God forgets not their need. For this 
their living and their dying may be enriched in 
mercy and grace and deeper, more substantial 
good, than the duty of less hardness, or the dying 
less apparently grievous. 

It is Jesus makes life truly blessed. Where He 
is it is well. It is Jesus, not father, mother, sister, 
brother, friends, that makes the dying bed soft 
as downy pillows are. 

If we would have faith of this ourselves, and 
those we love, how much of the fear, the anxiety, 
and the mourning, would be turned into confi- 
dence, peace and joy. The Lord will and evermore 
careth for His own. In the light of this word the 
weeks of languishing through which our brother 
went to his early grave lose their dreariness, and 
where the watchers sat not we see Him watching 
most tenderly, and soothing the weary soul with 
the words most precious and sustaining, "I will 
never leave thee nor forsake thee." It was our 
youthful brother's religion that took him into the 
army. It was duty, and duty only, that led him 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 75 

towards the field of blood. It was his God that 
ordained his last living and dying thus, and it 
was his God, we are assured of it, that proved 
faithful to him through it all, a very present help 
in his every time of need. 

And as with him so we believe it to have been 
with others who have fallen in the faith of Jesus. 
They were far from us, but God was not far from 
His own. 

III. It is here that we get grand and inspiring 
views of God and the great kingdom of God. 
One in which our poor life is kindly and glori- 
ously exalted by consenting and participating 
with the out-working beneficence and glory of 
God. What is life but a transient dream, eat- 
ing and drinking to-day and dying to-morrow! 
It is a little matter that begins in the cradle and 
ends in the grave. And is this all it is, and all 
the greatness and the good that concerneth us? 
No, no, God, the eternal God, and our Saviour, 
appears, working out with us and by us the most 
beneficent designs. What they are in the definite 
and particular we know not, but it is on from 
glory to glory. God, with all celestial powers. 



76 HOW ONE CHURCH 

is. moving for a grand, all-satisfying and endur- 
ing future. He is the great Master worker. 
Now of that which pertaineth unto the believing 
man there are three things: The living on the 
earth, the dying and the after-life. All is the 
Lord's, all shall be made in His hands to work 
together for good. He marshals all this being. 
So apparently by accident, he times the living and 
arranges the hour of departure and assigns to 
immortality, not as an indifferent matter, but so 
that the living may have perfectness in itself and 
also that it may harmonize with the develop- 
ments of the great spiritual kingdom which is 
being established. 

We sometimes think we see good men die too 
soon or live too long. We think we see last hours 
unfortunately conditioned. But herein we are pass- 
ing an unauthorized criticism upon the prefects 
for ordination of God. God could, if he would, 
give us a most satisfactory reason why so many 
of His people were in the most repulsive life of 
military service to-day, why He made it duty for 
them to go and endure hardness. God could 
give a conclusive reason why so many thousands 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 77 

of His dear children are to-day In hospitals, 
why so many have passed far from dear home and 
Its sweet joys. These things are needful. They 
that suffer and die shall be satisfied when here- 
after they shall see them clearly. 



A SERMON 

Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words 
shall 710 1 pass away. — Matt. xxiv. 35. 

Ancient writers, commenting on Dore's cele- 
brated representation of our Lord's descending 
the steps of the Praetorium, on his way to the 
crucifixion, says it indicates a perfect calmness 
upon his face, an utter ignoring of his terrible 
surroundings and a far-away look in his solemn 
eyes, as if his heart-strings were yet vibrating to 
the lamentation over Jerusalem. This striking 
feature of the rendering of the great artist may 
seem original and unauthorized at first thought, 
but it is in special accordance with evangelical rec- 
ords of the passion week. First upon His mem- 
orable triumphant entry into the Holy City. 
When, with palm branch and loud hosannahs, 
that vast multitude came to that turn in the way 
where the unparalleled splendors of that peerless 
city burst, at once, upon the view, there was wit- 

78 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 79 

nessed a most surprising scene and one in the 
strongest possible contrast with that exultant and 
joyful occasion. For, then, when Jerusalem 
seemed at last to recognize her king. He himself, 
in that open and admiring public gaze, burst into 
tears, and cried out in despairing grief, ''If thou 
hadst known, even thou, at least, in this, thy day, 
the things which belong unto thy peace, but now 
they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall 
come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a 
trench around thee and compass thee around and 
keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even 
with the ground and thy children within thee, and 
they shall not leave in thee one stone upon an- 
other, because thou knowest not the time of thy 
visitation." This was on Monday. On Wednes- 
day the solemn and terrible arraignment of the 
scribes and Pharisees for their obdurate unbelief 
closed with these prophetic words, "Wherefore, 
behold I send unto you prophets and wise men 
and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and 
crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge in your 
synagogues and persecute from city to city, that 
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed 



8o HOW ONE CHURCH 

upon the earth from the blood of Zacharias, the 
son of Barachlas, whom ye slew between the 
temple and the altar. Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, all these things shall come upon this gen- 
eration. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kill- 
est the prophets and stonest them which are sent 
unto you, how often would I have gathered your 
children together even as a hen gathereth her 
chickens under her wings and ye would not. Be- 
hold your house is left unto you desolate." Later, 
also, on the same day as they were departing from 
the temple some said, "Master, see what manner 
of stones and what buildings are here?" And 
he answered, "Seest thou these great buildings? 
There shall not be left one stone upon another 
which shall not be thrown down." And there- 
upon, in a private conference, he told his won- 
dering disciples many more things about those 
days and the signs of their coming. Again, finally 
as Jesus was being led away to be crucified, fol- 
lowed by a great multitude of people, and women 
which also bewailed him. He, turning unto them, 
said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me 
but weep for yourselves. For, behold the days 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 8i 

are coming In which they shall say, 'Blessed are 
the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and 
the paps that never gave suck, when they shall 
begin to say to the mountains. Fall upon us, and to 
the hills, cover us.' " 

Thus the rejected Messiah set forth In grief 
and tears a definite prediction of a great judg- 
ment to come. And It Is Important to notice that 
the Immediate and special application of the fa- 
miliar words of our text was to emphasize the 
certainty of the fulfillment of those predictions. 
He gathers, as it were, the visible universe unto 
the sweep and energy of His expression and as- 
sures His astonished and incredulous disciples that 
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but his words 
about this particular prophecy shall not pass away. 
Things so real, fast and eternal as the very uni- 
verse itself shall pass away, but His words shall 
not pass away. Thus we come to the subject in 
hand. The historical verification of these words 
of Jesus. 

In instituting this Inquiry it is in point to ob- 
serve that never did solemn warning fall more 
utterly dead upon the empty air. The exultant 



82 HOW ONE CHURCH 

Sanhedrin slew the prophet and rejoiced. Re- 
ligious Jerusalem had relief in the thought that a 
formidable deceiver and blasphemer had been 
put out of the way. All together, lightly and se- 
curely, the multitude lifted up its mighty voice 
and cried, "His blood be upon us and our chil- 
dren.'^ 

It must be allowed also that to human appear- 
ances the fulfillment of such a prophecy was ex- 
ceedingly improbable. The Jewish nation, at 
large, despite of all previous losses and disasters, 
never had been so strong in the world, and it was 
still manifestly increasing in numbers and advanc- 
ing in influence. This people, intensely clannish 
and exclusive as they were, were nevertheless also, 
even before their last great dispersions, more gen- 
erally and largely represented throughout the 
known world than any other single race. And 
those communities were noted for their thrift, 
force of character and influence and their loftier 
and purer religious faith was ever strongly at- 
tractive to honorable men and women throughout 
the heathen world. But always and everywhere 
the heart was true to the land of the fathers, anH 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 83 

Its ceaseless and passionate refrain was, ''If I 
forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand for- 
get her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let 
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I 
prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy" ; and, by 
the spirit of that loyalty, the entire Gentile world 
was, in a certain real sense, put under tribute as 
the frequent pilgrims brought costly offerings upon 
the Holy Altar, At home, no hostile hand had 
been laid upon the state so heavily as to cause 
any permanent arrest of essential prosperity. 
Under the Herodlan dynasty, even, that evil and 
bloody house, a new city had been Inclosed out- 
side of ancient Jerusalem, and the temple Itself 
had been rebuilt and readorned with surpassing 
magnificence. The spirit of nationality had never 
been more vital, old traditions never more cher- 
ished, and the splendors of the ceremonial ritual 
never more Imposing. Be it, Indeed, that all was 
sadly carnal, misled and perverted to such a mon- 
strous extent, even as to effect the deification of a 
Herod and the rejection of her own Messiah, yet, 
notwithstanding, all was taken as moving on to 
that confidently expected day when the chosen race 



84 HOW ONE CHURCH 

should irresistibly and gloriously dominate the 
world. True, after straining the resources of the 
empire as no other people in her long career of 
conquest, the Roman yoke was upon her neck, 
as it was upon all the world. Yet her proud 
spirit was still unbroken. That subjugation was 
no menace of destruction, but contrariwise. For 
the policy of Rome was neither to hesitate nor 
avenge, but was, to a remarkable degree, consider- 
ate and tolerant to all peoples, religions and gods. 
It was one secret of the extent and duration of the 
empire that it so far harmonized its supremacy 
with the prosperity of tributary nations. In any 
probable event the destruction of a gem so pe- 
culiar and unique and brilliant as was Jerusalem 
in the imperial crown, was nothing less than the 
grossest wantonness and folly. It had been called 
the perfection of beauty, the joy of the earth. 
It was a great mountain fortress. There the 
Jebusites had held their ground for four hundred 
years after the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and 
then finally the victorious arm of David made it 
the lion of sacred literature. It was styled the 
habitation of Jehovah, from whence he looked 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 85 

upon all the Inhabitants of the world. Its kings 
were higher than the kings of the earth. Thus 
its physical elevation fitly typified the security, 
pride and confidence of its inhabitants. Accord- 
ing to a curious and expressive Rabbinical figure, 
the world is like an eye. The white of the eye 
is ocean surrounding the world, the black is the 
world itself, the pupil Is Jerusalem, and the image 
in the pupil is the Temple. This proud metropo- 
lis was then a thousand years old and had risen 
Phoenix-like from the ashes of every destructive 
conflagration. All that marble, brass, silver and 
gold, and elaborate and exquisite workmanship 
could achieve had been lavished upon this chosen 
city of God. The Temple, the only place in all 
the world where sacrifices might be offered unto 
the only living and true God, was in its structure 
and habiliments, as a high organ correspondent 
to its singular and lofty claims, appearing In the 
distance like a mount of snow fretted with golden 
pinnacles. In the extent and grandeur of Its pro- 
portions, as well as in Its decorations. It far ex- 
ceeded any edifice of its kind at Rome. The de- 
liberate and final judgment of history Is that the 



86 HOW ONE CHURCH 

whole city at that time as far surpassed Rome in 
grandeur as it fell short of it in size and popu- 
lation. 

Add now to these natural grounds of assurance 
the glorious things spoken of Zion by the prophets 
of old and the exultant sentiments of the inspired 
psalms, whereby it became a part of holy wor- 
ship to sing in strains like these, viz: "Walk 
about Zion and go round about her, tell ye the 
towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, con- 
sider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the gen- 
eration following. They that trust in the Lord 
shall be as Mount Zion which cannot be moved 
but abideth forever. As the mountains are round 
about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his 
people forever." Such was the array of argu- 
ment and presumption confronting the word of 
Christ that day when, as the worst of malefactors, 
he hung nailed upon the cross. 

Look we now to the evangelical records for 
a historical counterpart as full, clear and indis- 
putable as the prophecy itself. It is nowhere here 
to be found. Though the chronology of the New 
Testament embraces this memorable event there 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 87 

is a profound silence about the whole matter, like 
that constrained silence of inspiration so notice- 
able in other cases, where human heart, hand and 
tongue would be most demonstrative. Nor can 
it b-e discovered that the early Christians ever 
made any provision whatever to report to suc- 
ceeding generations when or how ancient Jeru- 
salem disappeared from the face of the earth. 

Yet, nevertheless, in the course of events, signal 
witnesses were provided, and records were made, 
and they will both stand unimpeached and unim- 
peachable so long as men credit human history. 
Extinguish Christianity and all her records and 
there will yet remain the unquestioned fact that 
Jerusalem was miserably destroyed. For the 
story is neither by intent, author or bias. Christian. 
It is simply profane history, such as requires no 
faith in God or religion to accept. But it is a 
narration more fully circumstantial and realistic 
than exists of any other like event in the history 
of the world. Not Babylon, nor Tyre, nor Sidon, 
nor Athens, nor Carthage, nor Rome itself has 
had her supreme catastrophe thrown out in sharp 
and horrible relief and made such a common inci- 



88 HOW ONE CHURCH 

dent. How abundantly and how clearly both 
from the eyes of Josephus, who was an eye wit- 
ness upon the ground, and from the matured de- 
ductions of historians, as well as from the fact of 
the timely flight of the Christians of Jerusalem 
from the doomed city, — we have not time to tell 
how abundantly and clearly its distinctive fea- 
tures and incidents are identified with the course 
of events. But that identification is without ques- 
tion we have not time to demonstrate, but pass at 
once to the culminating movements of the mon- 
strous tragedy. 

As the rejection of the Messiah had been gen- 
eral, both at home and abroad, so in like manner, 
a common calamity seemed to overtake the race. 
Says Milman, ''It might seem as if the skirts of 
that tremendous tempest which was slowly gather- 
ing over the nation, country and the metropolis 
of the Jewish nation broke and discharged their 
heavy clouds of ruin and desolation successively 
over each of the more considerable though remote 
settlements of the devoted people." Roman senti- 
ment, both official and popular, heretofore essen- 
tially indulgent and liberal, became hostile, and 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 89 

finally under the infamous administration of 
Florus the tributary yoke was made to gall and 
torture to a degree to madden into insurrection 
a far more long-suffering people. Popular ani- 
mosity thus encouraged seemed everywhere let 
loose upon an outlawed race, until at length the 
wantonly outraged and infuriated Jew hurled 
back defiance in the face of a world in arms. And 
thus without an ally or friend, or hope of favor, 
he himself gratuitously aggravated and embit- 
tered the conflict. But the fearful odds and the 
ultimate hopelessness of this unequal struggle were 
but the least part of the untowardness, the dis- 
couragement and misery of that fateful time. 
For never did a nation rush headlong into a great 
foreign war In such a deplorable condition of 
civil strife. Not only was there no acknowledged 
or organic unity, no comprehensive system of ac- 
tion or defense; on the other hand the energies 
and resources of the country were being wantonly 
consumed in a desperate and relentless civil war- 
fare. Assassination was rife and Its stealthy mys- 
terious hand struck down even the High Priest 
himself within the sacred precincts of the Temple 



90 HOW ONE CHURCH 

itself. Brigandage under the lead of many false 
Messiahs added to the miserable confusion, while 
a grievous famine of five successive years' dura- 
tion came with its woeful aggravation of the na- 
tional calamity. Indeed every possible adverse 
element seemed mingled in that bitter cup which 
was to be drained to the dregs by that doomed 
generation. But the amazing vitality and energy 
of Jewish patriotism, though so Immensely handi- 
capped and embarrassed, withstood the pressure 
of the imperial arms for three bloody years, but, 
though slowly, yet with irresistible advance, the 
veteran legions of Rome gathered in upon the des- 
perate insurrection, step by step, and stamped it 
out with exterminating vengeance on the 13th of 
April in the year of Our Lord 70. Titus en- 
camped before the walls of the Holy City itself. 
This advance fell upon the time of the great 
feast of unleavened bread. A vast multitude of 
pilgrims encamped outside the walls crowded 
within the town, where now packed together, ac- 
cording to the estimate of Josephus, were 3,000,- 
000 of human souls, a number large enough at 
least to strain to the utmost all the accommo- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 91 

dations and resources of the beleaguered city. 
Consider, furthermore, that within that crowded 
space three hostile camps shared control of af- 
fairs, only suspending assault upon each other 
under pressure from the outside foe, and it needs 
no vivid imagination to forecast the inevitable 
and unspeakable horrors of the situation. 

It goes without telling that the details of that 
five months' siege are wearisome and sickening in 
countless cases of extremest misery, anguish and 
horror. This was one of those awfully calami- 
tous times when not only all the holy dictates of 
religion but also all the kindly instincts of the 
heart seem in suspense and human beings live, 
ravage, fight and die, like savage beasts. Suffice 
to say that no skeptic can ever claim that the ful- 
fillment was inadequate to the prophecy. We 
hasten past that holocaust of famine, blood and 
fire to the end. Nearly a million and a half of hu- 
man beings perished during the siege. Some of 
the tallest and most handsome of the captives 
were reserved for the triumph of Titus. The 
aged and infirm were put to death in cold blood. 
Of the rest all above seventeen years of age were 



92 HOW ONE CHURCH 

sent to the mines of Egypt or reserved for gladia- 
tors, who singly or in companies were compelled 
to slay each other or were slain by wild beasts 
in the theaters of Rome for the amusement of 
their conquerors. The whole city, says Josephus, 
was so thoroughly leveled and dug up that no one 
visiting would believe it had ever been inhabited. 
That was the most blood-stained soil on the face 
of the globe. Seventeen times had this devoted 
city been besieged, six times had it been captured. 
This was its second and final destruction as a 
Jewish city. On the merely human side the record 
which the Israelites had made as a nation was 
as heroic and glorious as has ever been achieved 
by the sword. But mortal might and courage are 
vain against the supernal decree. The end had 
come. The entire country of the subjugated race 
was confiscated, and remains unredeemed to the 
present day, and the Jew was thenceforth through 
long centuries to be an afflicted and helpless alien 
in the land of his fathers, or wander in an un- 
friendly world. When next rebuilt Jerusalem was 
a heathen city and the oppressed and helpless rem- 
nant of Israel was obliged to divert its annual tem- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 93 

pie tax to the support of the Idolatrous rites of 
Olympian Jove upon the very site of Its own Holy 
Place. The Temple fell, never more there or else- 
where to raise again, and the Altar and the priest- 
hood were forever burled under its ruins. Thus 
temple. Altar and priesthood forever lost, there 
could be no more sacrifice for sin. It was needed 
no more, for the Lamb of God had been offered 
up for the sins of the whole world. 

The requiem of ZIon is most fitly sung In the 
sublime strains of her own Holy Oracles. How 
hath the Lord covered the Daughter of ZIon with 
a cloud In his anger and cast down from heaven 
unto the earth the beauty of Israel and remem- 
bered not his footstool in the day of his anger. 
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitation of 
Jacob and hath not pitied. He hath thrown down 
in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of 
Judah. The Lord hath done that which He de- 
vised, He hath fulfilled his word that He com- 
manded In the days of old. 

Therefore that which hath been done, that 
which hath been suffered, that had been witnessed 
to by unbelieving eyes, reported by unbelieving 



94 HOW ONE CHURCH 

tongues and fully accredited by an unbelieving 
world has in strange ways and astonishing minute- 
ness, as well as exhaustive completeness, fulfilled 
these words of Christ which when spoken were 
scarcely credited by his most devoted followers. 
Through the cries and tears and torn heart strings 
of divine compassion the secret of the doomed 
escaped to the world. He who came from God 
first of all to save the Holy City, who yearned 
over her with an inexpressible and unquenchable 
love and despairingly recognized the obduracy of 
her guilt, bathed her streets in unavailing tears for 
the great day of her visitation when it was forty 
years away. In any supposable case could 
there be a stronger course of reason, a more 
formidable array of improbabilities, a more sin- 
cere insistence of the mind than that which here 
combined to dispute and deny the words of Christ? 
All assurances in earth and heaven were that that 
consecrated place could not be destroyed, as soon 
should eternal truth and the only Living God 
Himself pass away. But the great reversal has 
come. The record has gone unquestioned into the 
world's history. Everything here that withstood 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 95 

his word has passed away, and their ruin is monu- 
mental of the eternal verity of the words of Jesus 
Christ as they concern the interests and destiny of 
human kind. 

Is there not here solemn admonition of most 
practical kind, and is not the number to which it 
appeals larger by far than all the professing 
Christians of the world? If all the words of 
Jesus Christ are to be completely vindicated, how 
tremendous are to be the revivals of soon coming 
times! What havoc is to be made in human ex- 
pectations and the destinies of millions of human 
souls ! 

The opposition to the words of Jesus Christ 
to-day, with all its doubts, its questionings, its un- 
belief, its philosophy, its reasonings, its criticisms, 
its scoffs. Its ridicule, great, deplorable as it is in 
its influence upon the young and the old, making 
so easy, so natural, so reasonable and comfort- 
able to practically disregard all warnings and in- 
vitations, this great popular discrediting of Christ 
and His word is yet in reality and substance but 
the repeating in history the presumption and con- 
fidence of the millions which it then misled! Then 



96 HOW ONE CHURCH 

Is It not time for the wise and the prudent to put 
themselves out of the way of opposition to such 
words as these? Who should choose to enter Into 
conflict with him whom the justification of human 
history has made so formidable? Woe, woe to 
him whom Christ declared to be In the way of 
destruction, though all the world may gainsay and 
deny! 

Blessed, forever blessed, Is he to whom the 
eternal words of Jesus Christ are a refuge, de- 
fense and an eternal hope. 



A SERMON 

Preached June 26, 1864. 

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; 
see that ye he not troubled, for all these things 
must come to pass, hut the end is not yet. 

Without entering into a particular discussion 
upon the interpretation of the chapter in which 
the text is found, observation of one or two plain 
facts will prepare the way to the object In view. 

1. These words are addressed to Christians. 

2. To Christians in respect to troublous times, 
to wars and rumors of wars. Where these con- 
ditions occur there can be nothing to forbid the 
application of the exhortation or declarations 
here given. 

I. First, then, be it observed that the assertion 
is made to believers that they shall hear of wars 
and rumors of wars, and an imperative, positive 
predication. It is doubtful whether there ever 
lived a generation of Christians who were not 

97 



98 HOW ONE CHURCH 

more or less tried by rumors or scenes of bloody 
strife. Though by precept of the gospel and the 
spirit of the new heart made to abhor blood and 
violence, rendered by their religion to be most 
painfully sensitive to all discord and conflict, yet 
the very Prince of Peace himself assures them 
that they are bound unto the necessity of experi- 
mental contact with that which their souls hate. 
Before that generation passed awaty to which 
Jesus then spake there came upon Jerusalem and 
Judea one of the most grievous and bloody wars 
that ever afflicted the Jewish nation. In the de- 
struction of the holy city was mingled every ele- 
ment of bitterness and suffering, perhaps, that was 
ever poured out for people. If we remember that 
the Jewish Christian was indissolubly bound by 
blood and affection to his native race and land, 
that his faith in the Son of David had not extin- 
guished but intensified and ennobled his patriot- 
ism, so that doubtless in view of the sins of his 
country he could but say, "With all thy faults, I 
love thee still." We may well believe that every 
success of the heathen Roman, every defeat and 
disaster and calamity of his countrymen in that 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 99 

long and dreadful siege, which at last came to a 
close in the utter humiliation and overthrow of 
the nation, was naturally a most afflictive and 
troublous course of events to the yet unalienated 
Israelite, who in the person of Paul, the perse- 
cuted, could wish himself ever accursed from 
Christ for his kindness according to the flesh. Of 
those things which should make both their ears 
tingle they should hear. The church which suc- 
ceeded that time of tribulation was passed under 
the affliction of the wars of the Roman Empire, 
which knew no permanent repose until the sun of 
her glory and existence went down in blood and 
fire. Directly or indirectly the church has experi- 
enced terror and hurting by the sword on all its 
way down the warring ages. Bloody strifes have 
Invaded her peaceful habitation, taken up her be- 
nevolent purposes, destroyed her hopes, wasted 
the blood of her sons, and in untold ways tended 
to Increase her anxiety, distress and suffering. No 
strange thing has befallen us In that way that 
touches home to the quick, we are made to hear 
from day to day, week to week, month to month, 
and year to year, of war and war and rumor of 



loo HOW ONE CHURCH 

war. They are a part of that sad experience 
which the Lord said long ago should be. The de- 
sires and prayers and efforts have not been able, 
are not able, and shall not be able, to prevent that 
bloody strife. Ye shall hear of it and know of 
it, my people, that it may be a part of your expec- 
tations on the earth. We tremble, we mourn, 
we are tempted to distress and despair because 
of what we hear of this great and grievous and 
threatening and wasting war. But this war Is 
the command of the Lord and the foretold of the 
Lord, that which by providence and grace this 
generation of Christian men and women were 
ordained to hear and know. It Is a part of those 
decrees to which the instructions of our faith pre- 
pare us to bow, that which God is pleased to say 
shall continue in the world. 

IL Next we have direction as to the state of 
mind with which we meet this disturbed condi- 
tion of human affairs. See that ye be not troubled. 

This cannot mean a dead and unbroken Insensi- 
bility to the issues of war, for there have prob- 
ably been but few struggles In respect to which 
Intelligent sympathies have not been enlisted upon 



WENT THROUGH A WAR loi 

one side or the other so as to cause a solicitude for 
one of the parties and sorrow for Its disasters. It 
cannot mean a callous Indifference to the human 
suffering Involved. There may be a quietude and 
carelessness In view of most momentous and 
bloody convulsions which are simply monstrous, 
reflecting anything but credit upon heart or head. 
Sympathies and Intelligence naturally causing 
anxieties, fears, and sorrows are all unrebuked 
and commanded of him who himself wept, a man 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 

Upon the human side as respects sufferings and 
jeopardy of that which Is good. Christians are 
most delicately and acutely sensitive to all the dis- 
turbances of war. Supernatural benevolence Is 
not Indifference to that which Increases the bur- 
den of human war, or drives its bloody plowshare 
apparently so destructively among the roots of 
most of the Interests of the world. The sensibility 
which In times of war disposes towards a painful 
solicitude for the result, that disposes the heart 
to enter with strong sympathy Into the sorrows 
and woes of the time. Is creditable and well. It 
bespeaks the larger soul, the more refined and 



I02 HOW ONE CHURCH 

elevated sentiments. This Indicates that noble 
virtue humanity, the love of man. This mind 
was In Jesus, by It he sorrowed, suffered and wept 
for the world. Therefore, the sin Is not In the 
stirring of troublous emotions, but In not caus- 
ing the diviner sentiment of faith In God to work 
upon and direct them. The words Indicate the 
mastery and control of tumultuous and disquieted 
feelings. See that ye be not troubled. The dan- 
ger Is that sight and sense will get above faith, 
that In the stormy and distressful scene that voice 
win not be heard which speaks In every fearful 
hour, "It Is I, be not afraid." Be In sympathy 
with the best, let your heart be measurably re- 
joiced or depressed by the course of events, un- 
rebuked, be not hard of heart in view of the wars 
of the times. Wrestle if you would with strong 
crying and tears in respect to what you suffer 
and fear If you would, be sorrowful and very 
heavy, weep with those that weep, thereby do you 
show the sensibilities of a Christian soul, yet never 
have that dark unconsolable trouble of a faith In 
God lost. Feel, but evermore resist all the sug- 
gestions and conclusions of hopeless and gloomy 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 103 

unbelief. 

See that ye be not troubled. There would be 
no fitness of the injunction but for the exceeding 
great exposure to that wretched condition. It Is 
because these wars and rumors of wars are so 
exceedingly troublous and discouraging, because 
of the cost and the blood and the suffering, be- 
cause so many delays, reverses and disappoint- 
ments, because of the very discouraging cost and 
the conjunction of wants, because we are ready 
to despair of all good and to give up all hope, 
because a mighty and almost overpowering trou- 
ble Is magnifying Itself to the possession of our 
entire consciousness, that God comes to help, giv- 
ing us permission and command still to bear up. 
That Is a steady, firm, strong, substantial peace 
that comes by occasion of trouble. Nothing is 
so stable as that which Is established and held by 
two strongly counteracting forces. They know 
what faith Is who have doubted. They under- 
stand security who have had fears, they enter 
Into the blessedness of joy who have tasted the 
sorrow. So they reajlze what It Is to be un- 
troubled in God, who have felt what trouble is. 



104 HOW ONE CHURCH 

The cloud and the storm and the whirlwind are 
In the air, but through this very medium In which 
they act there Is a rising to the bright and peace- 
ful scenes above the clouds. 

*'See that ye be not troubled." 

What a blessed commandment In days like 
these. Trouble Is dreadful, this our great tribu- 
lation who can estimate Its unspeakable grlevous- 
ness; almost every sight and sound seems to say, 
"Ye do well to be troubled and only so," but God 
speaks down In sublimely reassuring tones, say- 
ing, "See that ye be not troubled, keep courage, 
hope, endure, let not your hearts be troubled." 

III. The next point Is the affirmation of the 
necessity of wars and rumors of wars, as a rea- 
son why believers should not be discouraglngly 
troubled by them. All these things must come 
to pass. This is not a blind, reasonless, purpose- 
less and cruel fate, but the wise and good sov- 
ereignty of Almighty God. Aside from the 
Gospel of Christ, there is no ground for the con- 
fidence that the divine judgments towards this 
world would be ordained In vices of the well- 
being of a rebellious race, but in Christ there is 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 105 

a practical pledge and assurance that the neces- 
sities of God's action as related to mankind shall 
be in the interest of mercy and salvation. This 
must be In the dispensation of grace and by the 
law of peace and good-will to man. 

Predestination towards the believer Is set in 
this way. If God be for us, who can be against 
us? He that spared not his own son, but deliv- 
ered him also freely, gives us all things, all things 
for good, and that extends to that which Is 
grievous as well as to that which Is joyous for 
the present. And all Is now from God for all the 
world, all the decrees of God, by this stormy 
declaration God so loved the world that he gave 
his only begotten son that whosoever belleveth In 
him should not perish but have everlasting life. 
For God sent not his son unto the world to con- 
demn the world; but that the world, through him, 
might be saved. So knowing the great mercy 
of God In the Gift of his son to the world, we 
are compelled to believe that whatever he fixes 
to come to pass is also in the Interest of mercy 
and love, for God's work is consistent and har- 
monious. Therefore, do we know that whatever 



io6 HOW ONE CHURCH 

he declareth by word or providence must be, is the 
best thing for all the world to come to pass. It 
is an Infinitely wise and unspeakably kind neces- 
sity. What a comforting interpretation to give 
to troublous things. Divine sovereignty alone 
clothes grim and cruel war with a mantle of 
prophetic beauty and light. The Father on high 
saith to his distressed and trembling children, be 
calm, let not your heart be troubled, these things 
must be, they are best, should not the wisdom 
of an all-merciful God be endured, though It 
roll past in the horrid storm of war? Shall we 
unbeHevIngly inquire how these things can be? 
Shall we say God Is not able to prove that all 
these things are not against us? Rather let us 
believe the judgment of God a great deep, past 
finding out, till he himself Is pleased to make 
them plain. We will wait in peace for the great 
day when with wondering admiration we shall 
praise the Gracious disposer of all events, for 
even all the tribulations of the world. Great shall 
be the glory of God in that he shall show so much 
good to flee from the apparently useless and de- 
structive things. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 107 

Even more appears something of the mission 
of the wars and rumors of wars that are com- 
missioned of God in the earth. 

In these bloody and violent scenes are the vast- 
est and most vivid expressions of human de- 
pravity. Hereby are made to appear the de- 
plorable consequences of wrong acts and prin- 
ciples. War punishes sin, humbles the pride 
of man, teaches human dependence and insignifi- 
cance, and reveals the will and power of the 
Almighty. War sweeps away the pestilent vapors 
of moral evil, a stormy breath of blood and fire. 
War overthrows political and social despotisms. 
War reveals the need of an almighty refuge, 
purifies the souls of the sinners and takes them 
from this world and becomes to the wise an 
Illustration of the principles and facts and the pro- 
visions of the divine government. It makes a 
part of the great tribulation through which those 
that are made white enter into the rest of God. 
But how little Is all this, or all that can be read 
out by human wisdom In inspired precept com- 
pared with that which omniscience beholds 
when he says these strifes and bloody scenes must 



io8 HOW ONE CHURCH 

come to pass? What constrains Almighty God 
to the permlttal of this great day of suffering, 
desolation and fear? Is It not the vision of bet- 
ter things, is it not the joy to come which says 
of all this grievous train, these things must come 
to pass? Thus we interpret this mind of God. 

And the concluding part of our text sets up the 
future In the form of a watchword for grievous 
times. "The end is not yet." Not amidst the 
confusion, distress and destruction of war is the 
final result. To chaotic violence all things are 
not tending. This is the mediate and transitory, 
the means not the end. It is a part of our faith 
in our holy religion to be assured that by the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the world's affairs 
shall end well, that all things now apparently 
good or bad are under divine mercy and power 
converging and combining towards a far more 
heavenly state, that these disturbing overturn- 
ings are for the bringing In of a better kingdom. 
We have no right to hold the salvation of the 
world which God has undertaken in such earnest, 
and so costful, to be anything less than a final suc- 
cess. The divine Redeemer "shall see of the 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 109 

travail of his soul and be satisfied," and the pro- 
vision and the call was for the world. That many 
souls shall perish we have reason to believe, but 
we are not authorized to believe, that at the last 
count of all the generations of time, lost will be 
a more appropriate term to the great multitude 
for whom Christ died, than saved, and in the full- 
ness of time the Gentiles shall come and be gath- 
ered in. Christ was crucified, but he lived again, 
the world tastes of miseries and death and destruc- 
tions in wars and rumors of wars, but this is not 
the end, it is on the way of tribulation and glory, 
of truth and life, of distresses and comfortings, 
of war and peace, say it over in the dark and 
stormy and fearful night, when impenetrable 
gloom serves to envelop all earthly affairs. When 
the gates of hell seem to prevail. The end is 
not yet, the end Is not yet. A morning cometh, 
often this morning glorified by the night and the 
storm. The economy of grace substantially ap- 
plies to the world, the light afflictions which are 
but for a moment work out the weight of glory, 
far more exceeding. After the great war and 
wars, peace profound, wide as the world, just 



no HOW ONE CHURCH 

heavenly and blessed. May we not say it the 
warfare of the world is God conquering a peace, 
forces of God energizing on to the effectual and 
perfect pacification of human society, though it 
may be torn and cast down for dead, yet thus 
the evil spirit goeth out. This hopeful view we 
have of the race in the mass. But in more em- 
phatic and unqualified sense it may be said to the 
people of God distressed and afflicted by wars 
and rumors of wars. The end is not yet. We 
shall not look upon conflict, sorrow, suffering and 
devastation forever. Disturbed government, riot- 
ing, rebellion, lawless and cruel violence, shall not 
make your surrounding forever. These things 
must come for a little time, but be not troubled 
as in the midst of a disastrous and irretrievable 
calamity. Through this experience it pleased the 
all wise and most merciful Father to take you to 
the everlasting kingdom of Peace. These wars 
of man magnify and will for all eternity mag- 
nify and enhance the peace of God. Thus it 
standeth to the people of God. Indeed after the 
war, and the wars, peace shall come, everlasting 
rest. That is the end. Jerusalem is the destina- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR iii 

tion, Jerusalem the habitation of peace. 

And, furthermore, as God says that wars must 
be at the last, when looking on the great whole 
we shall not regret for the warfare of the world, 
however grievous It may have been with its be- 
ginning, its issues, its security, its protraction. In 
the times of settlement, for first and last under 
God they each and all were instrumental in ad- 
vancing the kingdom of God in the earth. 
Though not one of these struggles was wholly 
justifiable respecting man, though every one was 
directly or indirectly caused by sin, and carried 
on in sin in a great measure, though at the time 
many appeared too costful to us, without good 
results, failures as respects best purposes, and 
ended in an unrighteous peace or wholly disas- 
trous. I say, however these bloody struggles may 
have been related to human responsibility and 
however they may have ended at the time, yet at 
the last, when viewed as a part of God's provi- 
dential dealing with the world, they that see as 
God sees and feel as God feels will be satisfied 
with the agencies of the bloody struggles of hu- 
man society. They will feel that if they had not 



112 HOW ONE CHURCH 

occurred, or been otherwise, that the God of war, 
the Lord of Hosts, had discarded them. It had 
not been so well. Other things being as they were, 
these very same bloody struggles had a necessary 
relationship to the highest good of mankind and 
the glory of God. 

Therefore, withstand the depression of the 
present hour, bear up amidst all the apparent 
disasters and delays with the watching. The end 
Is not yet, the end Is not yet. These are the 
strong doctrines with which our souls should be 
guided in these troublous times. 

It Is a tendency to cultivate as much as may 
be a callous indifference to that which occasions 
distress. To withdraw from sympathy with the 
afflicted; and to secure repose by narrowing the 
ways of solicitude to that which is merely per- 
sonal and selfish. But Christ contradicts one In 
the spirit of a religion of universal love, and sym- 
pathy rebukes the other. There shall be perilous 
times, there shall be trouble, that Is the kind of 
life that Christians are to look for, and the law 
of Christian love Is to be sensitive to all that 
Interests humanity, to weep with those that weep. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 113 

He is a fool or monstrously heartless who can 
live in times like these when tremendous changes 
are passing on, when great interests are at stake, 
and slaughter and sorrow delaying the land, and 
not feel the dangers and wars of the day. Hu- 
man benevolence looking upon these sad and 
threatening scenes, interpreting them according 
to their seeing, will be disquieted and anxious. 
Wars embarrass less or more apparently every 
good cause, in themselves they are demoralizing 
and destructive. They fill the land with suffer- 
ing and agony. Therefore, the Christian looks 
with the keenest and most painful solicitude to all 
developments that tell upon the extension of 
strife. The good man Is troubled, he feels the 
mad tossing of the dreadful sea. God speaks 
to calm his soul, yet sees to it that "ye be not 
troubled, those things must come to pass. You 
cannot keep back the wars with their vast trains 
of present war, you cannot manage them, but 
do not be afraid of them. I ride upon the whirl- 
wind and direct the storm. Stand up strong 
against the evil tidings, endure the tribulation In 
patience, the end is not yet.'* To hear that voice 



114 HOW ONE CHURCH 

addressed to faith and by the confidence of it 
to keep down the excited, turbulent fears and 
anxieties and to endure without despondency the 
reverses and delays and the losses and the be- 
reavements and the present desolations, that is 
Christian force — and a bit by which excitement 
and fears of the maddest tones may be kept sub- 
dued and composed. 

These almost measureless troubles of ours may 
enlarge themselves yet more and more every hour, 
till there shall be a tribulation such as never has 
been since the beginning of the world to this 
time and such as shall remain. Such a day is 
doubtless somewhere in the future for us or those 
that are to come afterwards. Yet what then? 
The voice of our God unto all that believe in his 
name is, behold I have foretold all things, but be 
not troubled, be not overwhelmed with fear and 
despair. This the watchword through every dark, 
stormy and portentous time. The end is not yet. 



A SERMON 

March 15, 1912. Written April 30, 1863. 

^'Are not these evils come upon us because our 
God is not among us?*^ 

These are the words of the Lord unto Moses, 
reveahng something of the future of Israel. They 
serve as a key to the varied fortune and misfor- 
tune of the chosen people. Over Israelitish and 
Jevt^ish history might be written this generaliza- 
tion — God and good — ungodliness and evil. Here 
we have illustration of the law and accountability 
of nations that know the Lord. Observe this, that 
God made the divine commandments or principles 
revealed superior to any and every other obli- 
gation, and held them firmly there. That which 
he insisted upon, enforced by repeated injunc- 
tions and repeated judgments, as well as favors, 
was unqualified obedience and service supreme 
unto himself. God as God on unquestioned au- 
thority was to be acknowledged always and in 

"5 



ii6 HOW ONE CHURCH 

every thing. The obedience of Abraham that 
could honor the authority of God against so much 
apparent and felt opposition, was the service in 
which the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob 
delighted. The discipline of the chosen people 
was to teach them, and others, through them, that 
God Is to be obeyed as God. He commanded the 
hosts to go forward when so to do apparently 
was to enter the engulfing sea. He bade the peo- 
ple be of good courage and fight when their fears 
counseled them to turn back, and he bade them 
turn back in his displeasure when they presumed 
to go up against the enemy without divine permis- 
sion, and forty years in the wilderness and dis- 
astrous defeat in battle taught them how costly 
it was to swerve from the word of the Lord. 

Time does not allow the enumeration of the 
times and ways in which results showed that the 
course of the people should be directed, not by 
dictates of worldly prudence, not by expediency, 
not by any or every thing that might make itself 
felt in the case, but only by the sure word of God. 
Why it is a reasonable, a simple requirement — 
nothing less is fitting to the conditions of the case. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 117 

God so far as known must be God. Yet continu- 
ally were this people lifting up to equality with 
divine authority or to superiority over it, or mix- 
ing up with it other considerations. When trouble 
would be sent upon them, in the discipline of which 
they would consider their great sin of banishing 
God from their hearts, and put the humble and 
confessing inquiry, "Are not these evils come upon 
us because our God is not among us?" ''The chil- 
dren of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord" 
and "The children of Israel cried unto the Lord." 
Ten times these two alternating sentences occur 
in the history of the time of the Judges, showing 
the stubborn waywardness of the people and at 
the same time the reasserted authority of God. 

Great calamities have come upon this nation. 
No man can see the end of them. What is this? 
Have these evils come upon us because our God is 
not among us? 

There Is with us all the knowledge of God that 
Israel ever had and a great addition besides, the 
light that came of the old dispensation completed 
and of the revelations of God In Jesus Christ. 

According to this light Is there fidelity to God? 



ii8 HOW ONE CHURCH 

Does the nation know, and love, and dare to prac- 
tice the divine commandments in all circumstances 
and temptations? Is It enough to prove that a 
thing Is right in the sight of the Lord to command 
for it general recognition? Is this people valiant 
for truth and righteousness, equity and justice? 
Are there no higher motives than divine sanctions? 
It is not to be allowed that there are strained and 
overdrawn tests. They can seem so only to those 
who acknowledge not the revelation of God in 
the Scriptures. 

These questions sweep a very wide field. It Is 
only possible on this occasion to examine a part 
of It. 

This being a national day, It Is proper to view 
things In a national light. 

I shall not make violent and unnatural effort 
to avoid that matter which Is so widely acknowl- 
edged as the Immediate cause and occasion of our 
present troubles and which is so directly thrown 
upon our notice by the words of the Lord indi- 
cating what such days as these should be. ''Is not 
this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the 
bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 119 

and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break 
every yoke." 

Is there a man in this presence who is ignorant 
of the peculiar regard that the Lord has declared 
for the poor and the oppressed? Is there one 
who does not recognize our God as the com- 
mander of justice and mercy? Can there be for 
a moment doubt that the spirit of the new dis- 
pensation, so forcibly set in the golden rule, "As 
ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even 
so unto them," is one of benevolence and love? 
Yes, we do know it, that God and Christ were 
never on the side of oppression, injustice and 
wrong, but that there is a declared and enforced 
law against these things. 

Herein, then, before God, before his plainly 
intimated will, this Nation is under condemnation. 
The nation is an oppressor in the earth, and that 
under peculiar circumstances of aggravation. 

In this nineteenth century, in the brightest light 
of revelation and civilization that has ever shone 
upon the world, when people after people in 
Christendom have been and are being shamed out 
of such inhumanity and ungodliness, yea, after our 



120 HOW ONE CHURCH 

nation In most solemn and deliberate way had 
made declaration as of a newly discovered truth, 
to be a harbinger of blessing to all the earth In 
this wise, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, 
that all men are created equal, that they are en- 
dowed by their Creator with certain Invaluable 
rights. That among these are life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness." In and after all this 
the United States of America has stood before 
the world as having within Itself one of the most 
oppressed systems of human slavery In the world. 
Equal men, having right of life, liberty and pur- 
suit of happiness, have been allowed no control 
over their own life, have been despoiled of their 
liberty, bought and sold and made as subservient 
to the Interest of masters as the very beasts of 
the stall. These whom God created as men and 
women; whom Christ redeemed with his precious 
blood; among whom have ever been a large num- 
ber of those who exhibit brightest evidence of 
being born anew Into the spiritual kingdom as sons 
and daughters unto the Lord forevermore; these 
people grown at last to be more than four millions 
in multitude, It has pleased this nation. In Its 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 121 

collective capacity, to grind into the most 
grievous oppression — acting thus in the sight of 
God and man a monstrous hypocrisy and a He. 
Of God we may be sure that we are holden for 
this, for more than eighty years of self-controlling 
power and boundless prosperity was given to the 
country, whereby she might have repented and 
purged herself of the abomination. Had the peo- 
ple the heart to do this, it could have been done, 
years ago, and slavery, which is upon us In ter- 
rible retribution, might have been extinguished. 

Suppose the Constitution had been against the 
abolition of such an Institution as some affirm — are 
the people not able to change the Constitution? — 
but that has not been the difficulty — It has been 
the choice and sufferance of this nation to hold 
on In this offense against God and man. The 
people have not considered the oppression of the 
poor, they have been willing that millions should 
toil unpaid — they have steeled their hearts to the 
cry of the children of bondage, they have chosen 
not to regard that which stirreth pity In the heart 
of the Lord. Therefore, slavery by the nation 
has been suffered to continue till it has become 



122 HOW ONE CHURCH 

a great curse to all the nation. 

But is there no pleading of irresponsibility 
here? Not much, for North as well as South 
has been most unfriendly to this colored race. 
But one state in the Union recognizes its political 
equality in the negro. While the popular preju- 
dices — the common treatment of this people and 
the most inhuman and outrageous enactment 
against them on the statute books of many of 
the States, prove that it is deeply set in the hearts 
of this whole people to trample upon this unfor- 
tunate race. We must go farther than this 
acknowledgment. The religion of the so-called 
free states has been of late years constrained in 
respect to the wrongs and rights of this people. 
North as well as South. Under the plea of ex- 
pediency, political and religious convictions have 
been suppressed and overruled, and the ten thou- 
sand entanglements of lower considerations have 
gradually led the people in their great majorities 
to feel that this was a little matter, or that wrong 
was right. 

But the developments of the great struggle that 
has been passing in which the very existence of 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 123 

the government is at stake has demonstrated how 
reluctant the government and people are to being 
brought upon the ground of simple justice to this 
injured people — how forbearing we are to slav- 
ery. Yea, to this hour, though at such cost of 
blood and treasure, who knows but if the war 
might stop the outrages of the slave power. Would 
all be forgotten — and the unoffending children 
of bondage be sternly thrust down to a more 
hopeless and intolerable oppression than ever? 
Oh, it is astounding, this stubborn clinging to the 
side of oppression against the oppressed! To 
what a point has this grievous war brought the 
nation — the loyal nation? Why to this, forsooth 
— that it is willing that slavery should be de- 
stroyed if thereby the country may be saved! 
Willing to do an act of simple justice — wiUing 
to conform to the principles of the divine will if 
the country can be saved thereby — but also will- 
ing and ready if that seems the shortest way for 
us white people out of war — and cost and trou- 
ble, to quit money-making time, ready for this to 
consign the whole colored population of the land 
to sacrifice. Yes, do you not see it; it is only 



124 HOW ONE CHURCH 

self-preservation that has driven this people to- 
wards even the forms of acts of justice toward 
the enslaved of our land. Still it is the old prin- 
ciple of expediency. 

The public sentiment of the North would not 
sustain the government a moment in any course 
of simple equity toward the oppressed of the land. 
It is not zeal to work righteousness that is now 
loosing the bands of wickedness, undoing the 
heavy burdens — letting the oppressed go free and 
breaking the yoke so far as it is being done, but 
it is to be the terrible alternative of events which 
are saying, too clearly to be mistaken, this do or 
perish. 

Do we not see in this revolt that it is because 
our God has not been with us that this evil has 
come upon us? If the whole nation had heeded 
only the law of God and the spirit of Christianity 
in this thing, this root of bitterness, this deathful 
poison of our national life, would long ago have 
been removed, or if where there was the convic- 
tion of truth and righteousness, there had been 
courage to stand up for God and make protesta- 
tion in every lawful way, oppression had never 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 125 

become so bold and violent. It was because there 
was more of God in the heart than was made to 
appear that rebellion was ventured. It was this 
sufferance of wrong that Invited the outrage of 
the enemy. We see the long disastrous mistake, 
the sin that has drawn down judgment upon us. 
The people did not stand fearlessly up for God. 
The Cotton Gin made slavery profitable, with 
profit It grew strong, with strength it became de- 
fiant and threatening, with that it intimidated good 
men, and altogether by selfishness and lust and 
expediency even the best of the nation has been 
drawn far away from God In this thing. It Is 
time to go back to the only sure and safe ground 
— to do right Is to obey God as God — to ask no 
permission of man or time or circumstances, to 
serve the Lord. In this thing to take this ground, 
the part of the wronged and the oppressed, 
against Injustice, all Its spirit and works, because 
against all these things the Lord hath plainly 
declared himself. 

What Is required of God Is that a man's heart 
shall be with him and that he shall work for him 
not In the stealthy ways of expediency, but con- 



126 HOW ONE CHURCH 

fessedly and openly, doing unto the Lord what is 
right, leaving results to him. Who will deny this 
here to-day, that so far as this wronged and op- 
pressed people are concerned — South or North, in 
bondage or in friendless freedom — it is the part 
of every God-fearing man to stand by them by all 
means in his power, by wind and dew, willing to 
be known anywhere and everywhere as their 
friend, as a friend of all God's part in the world? 
It is time for Christian men to free themselves 
from all entanglements and to act as under God 
in all their political responsibilities, — they may 
get reproach, they may make minorities (that has 
ever been the condition of those who feared God 
alone in this world) , but they will keep themselves 
from the condemnation and mischief of other than 
service of the Lord. 

But perhaps some weak brother is troubled 
with that sophistry that, but for the opposition to 
slavery, there would have been no trouble. It 
is the Abolitionists that have made the war and 
we might have peace at any moment if we would 
only yield. That perhaps is in some sense true. 
Let wicked men have their way and they will not 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 127 

be enraged by opposition. For instance, it is 
very pleasant for the oppressor that he be allowed 
to perfect, without interference, all arrangements 
to the working of his system. Very pleasant if 
you will help him keep his slaves in subjection, if 
you will never mention the fact that they are of 
God designed for aught but toil and subserviency, 
if you will, on the other hand, preach to them 
that God and Christ mean that their masters 
should find their earthly mission, making them as 
the brute. Yes, in good temper the Devil him- 
self will keep for the time being if men will agree 
with him to cast God out of the world, if they 
shall consent to the banishment of every memento 
of God and abjure all the principles of his gov- 
ernment, but what then, when God is driven out 
— when all is given up? Will the world have a 
good time of it? Allow the assumptions of slav- 
ery, surrender all this fine land to the chain and 
whip, people it all over with the enslaved and 
to every enaction of this despotism say amen, — 
then have you done a favor to the land? You 
have averted a war, but given millions to the 



128 HOW ONE CHURCH 

curse. No I No ! This is not the peace that God 
bids us seek. Hold fast to him and the princi- 
ples which he has made known, stand up for him, 
be valiant for the truth. 



NATIONAL THANKSGIVING SERMON 

Preached in Guilford, Ct., Aug. 6, 1863. 

Hitherto the Lord hath helped us, — 

I Sam. vii. 12. 

The way of our thanksgiving to-day is through 
the deep cypress shade of our noble dead, along 
the extended ranks of our scarred, maimed, and 
disabled young men. Yea, from the midst of the 
separations, woes, and anxieties of a yet appalling 
and incalculable civil strife. Strange, unwonted 
thanksgiving! It is not for the rich harvest, the 
glad festival of the prospered year, kept in the 
delightful reunions of our scattered families, after 
the hallowed order of our honored ancestry. 

But it is of its kind, the solemn thanksgiving 
of war. It is the grateful recognition of the God 
of battles, who presides over the destinies of na- 
tions, for the signs of His mercy In the midst of 
shaken things in the course of irresistible events. 
The Chief Magistrate of our nation has appointed 



I30 HOW ONE CHURCH 

this day for thanksgiving to God because hitherto 
He hath helped us. It Is for us, therefore, In 
this place and at this time to trace the course of 
military events as Illustrative of the Divine favor. 
In so doing we need not shut our eyes to the great 
sacrifices of life, limb, and liberty. We may face 
the Incalculable woes and miseries of these years 
of civil war, and give most heartfelt thanksgiving 
to God, who has enabled this people to do, and 
to suffer, so much to save their precious national 
heritage. Thus they have shown themselves 
worth saving. When this generation is all gath- 
ered unto the fathers, they, whose heroism, sac- 
rifices and sufferings, voluntarily taken, have saved 
and more than restored all, will be the glory of 
their day. We may live and escape sorrows and 
sacrifices, but to them, and those that follow in 
that way, will redound the Immortal honor of 
saving their country In the time of Its mortal peril. 
Therefore we may devoutly thank the disposer of 
all events that enough of the heroic, true, and 
faithful have been found to save the day until 
now. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 131 



Anarchy 

Popular government is, even yet, regarded as 
an unsolved problem by many thoughtful men. 
Our government is committed to this experiment 
of self-rule. More than a decade less than a cen- 
tury is too short a time to settle so grave a ques- 
tion as this. But the trust is committed to the 
people — there is no power above them to direct, 
coerce or control. Will order or anarchy be the 
outcome? We are numerically and geographic- 
ally a great nation. People of all races of man- 
kind are here — the good and the bad — the wise 
and the ignorant — all with equal political rights. 
The bad man, and the good man, and the foolish 
man have an equal vote. None can deny that 
there is a perilous venture here. Will the many 
win where the selected few have so often failed? 
During this more than two years of civil strife, 
in the fierce conflict of opinions and forces, a test 
of our democracy is upon us. A question deeper 
than politics or administration is faced — the deep- 
est of all vital questions — this government or no 



132 HOW ONE CHURCH 

restraining government at all. Democracy is 
breaking away into chaotic anarchy. Is there, 
can there be, such a crime as treason in a popular 
government? Is not every man a law unto him- 
self? Is the American Republic a government, 
a state, a coherent power? Or is it "but the un- 
substantial fabric of a dream"? 

The southern rebellion is ultimate anarchy. 
The New York mob was anarchy broken loose, 
and, for a little, supreme — the hell of a world 
without law. It was an object lesson, well timed, 
even with its fiendish outrages. Sound Ameri- 
canism had a wholesome and stimulating vision 
of what it was fighting for. Let us thank God 
that this horror was but for a moment, and for the 
mighty resolve it quickened that free America 
should endure. 

The great rebellion was organized, armed, and 
made ready for action, while the loyal nation 
slumbered and slept in a well-nigh fatal security. 
In view of the condition of the country a little 
more than two years ago, the necessity of a star- 
tling arousement of the union sentiment is most 
apparent. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 133 

The ground of that confidence was the Inabil- 
ity to believe that a formidable resort to arms 
was possible. That deplorable security gave the 
great rebellion its chance. There was danger, 
and the North must be aroused or all were lost. 
And the warning came. And it was just enough 
to reveal peril, and fix the purpose, and arm the 
Union for the impending struggle. Sumter fell 
and the loyalty of the nation sprang to its feet 
when the old flag was trailed in the dust. Rumor 
was that a great army was about marching on 
Washington. An unprecedented host of 75,000 
men was summoned for the defense of the capital, 
and the vindication of the government, — in three 
months' holiday! The foe was but a few thou- 
sand misguided men who would never venture 
battle against so great an army. That first wave 
of patriotism broke in Ignominious flight from the 
battle of Bull Run. But this surprisal of defeat 
and shame stung the loyalty of the nation to 
agony. But defeat though It was, It sufliced to 
save our capital. Three months from Sumter 
and a triumphant rebel force stampedes the na- 
tional army to the forts of Washington ! 



134 HOW ONE CHURCH 

Yet, with all, the first Bull Run was one of the 
greatest mercies of the war. It woke up the na- 
tion. Now it grasped the gravity of the situation. 
And it was ready, and equal to Its opportunity. 
Men and money began to come In by millions I 
Traitors and croakers were shamed from sight. 
Life was lifted up Into the grander ranges of 
aspiration and devotion. Men and women were 
ready to do, to sacrifice, to suffer, to die I All 
because they saw and felt and wanted something 
better. 

Now what has prolonged the war and pre- 
vented a premature and a disastrous compromise? 
What has kept In suppression that peace that 
would have bartered every principle and every 
price for simple peace? 

Slavery 

There Is another line of retrospection too Im- 
portant to be overlooked at this time. It con- 
cerns a race that has unwittingly been the deep- 
est root and occasion of all this calamitous strug- 
gle. Without the slave there had been no North, 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 135 

no South, as we have no hostile East or West. 
He was delivered to the colonies, needing labor- 
ers, an evil fate, by the slave trader, not of his 
own will as a slave. He Increased In numbers 
and service wonderfully. But to what Is called 
the North, human slavery early became a curse 
and a crime. But to the South It was the pillar 
of the state, and a peculiar glory of Its Institu- 
tions. Hence, In the course of events, the great 
war. But neither North nor South, as antagonis- 
tic powers, made any mention of the great bone 
of contention. But the status of the slave. In 
spite of all efforts to Ignore his presence, was yet 
a stubborn fact In the situation. Most especially 
did the Federal administration keep as far aloof 
from It as possible. The Federal soldier also 
had not come to fight for "niggers." But it was 
not in human power to put the slave out of the 
course of events. Here also rebel successes were 
a mighty factor In respect to the status of the 
slave population. In due time It became clear 
to the loyal nation that its own salvation called 
for the helping hand of the black brother. The 
abolition of slavery was of God. Man had part 



136 HOW ONE CHURCH 

in it as to the way of his own national salvation. 
Adopted by the Union, uniformed and armed, the 
slave proved himself a man and a man for his 
time. He conquered the prejudice of the world. 
At Port Hudson, Millikens Bend, and Morris 
Island he put his heroic record into the annals of 
his country as a free man. The grand Proclama- 
tion went forth through the whole land that where 
waved henceforth the stars and stripes all men 
should be free. 

The peril of the nation from the beginning of 
this great struggle has been putting two very 
grave questions — Is there the will and is there 
power to save the state? Up to this time — more 
than two years of great war — there has been made 
apparent a great purpose and a great power of 
national salvation — but not enough to make that 
salvation evident. 

To sum it up why are we so courageous and 
hopeful to-day? 

I. We now know our enemy — how desperate 
and destructive its purpose — learned by dear ex- 
perience. 

We know that a mighty power is bent upon 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 137 

the destruction of our free government at any 
and every cost. It will use every possible means, 
fair or foul, to destroy the Republic. 

II. We have come to some wholesome and 
adequate estimate of the enemy's power. 

We have seen our boasted army under an over- 
vaunted leader shattered and ignominiously driven 
from the strong fortress of the foe — our own 
capital but just escaped from triumphal host once 
and again, an invasion of the loyal states barely 
turned back by bloody Antietam, the carnage and 
repulse of Fredericksburg, the blasting of eager 
anticipations at failure of Chancellorsville, our 
commerce burned upon the high seas. Berrys- 
ville and Murfreesboro, sanguinary and doubtful, 
gave little comfort, while the battlements of 
Vicksburg and Port Hudson blockaded the lower 
Mississippi and the great southwest. It was a 
long year of grievous disappointments and costly 
struggle. And, worse than all, a second great 
army of Invasion carried itself unchecked into 
one of the greatest of the Union states. In calam- 
ities and menaces like these we approached the 



138 HOW ONE CHURCH 

eighty-eighth anniversary of our national exist- 
ence. The obliteration of that anniversary, with 
all that It signified, seemed to Impend. Gettysburg 
was essentially a Fourth of July battle. It was 
a masterly, heroic battle of veteran forces. At 
Its bloody close the stars and stripes waved over 
all the stricken field more triumphantly and 
gloriously than ever and the beaten foe retired 
not Inglorlously from a daring adventure. Un- 
wittingly, Lee's great army of secession and dis- 
union had lent themselves to the reconsecratlon 
of the grand anniversary of the Republic. This 
was enough to satisfy but more was to come. 
That same day Vicksburg surrendered to General 
Grant, and her garrison of 30,000 men, and, to 
crown all, Port Hudson, the last fortress on the 
Mississippi, also was taken, and the great water- 
way was cleared to the Gulf ! 

It Is In point also to note how barren and In- 
effectual have been the successes of the enemy. 
He has not even held his own. The great ex- 
ploit of the invulnerable Merrimac opened no port 
and secured not the conditions of her own safety. 
And what of the successes, great and small, in 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 139 

Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Ar- 
kansas, Louisiana? Not in all those states, all 
of them once in rebellion, is to be seen a perma- 
nent trophy of success. They have secured no 
territory, but have lost state after state. Colum- 
bus, Bowling Green, Nashville, Memphis, fortified 
bluffs and islands on the western waters without 
number, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Roanoke, New- 
bern, Pulaski, Port Royal and the metropolitan 
southwest. How almost less than nothing stands 
to-day as monuments of rebel successes ! While 
the reaction of the temporary advantages react 
and smite upon them in the swelling armies of the 
North ! But the trend of the Union has been on- 
ward and firm in the face of all opposition. Our 
defeats have been written in the sand, to be oblit- 
erated by the rising waves of reaction. It surely is 
of the grace of Divine Providence that the enemy 
has been unable to gain by its successes and our 
cause has not lost by its reversals. Do we not 
see a hand working on, slowly it may be, but so, 
most completely to root out altogether the great 
bitter root of all our trouble — human slavery? 
Is not a consummation like that worth working 



I40 HOW ONE CHURCH 

for, suffering for, waiting for? 

All and all did we ever have such occasion for 
a great national thanksgiving as to-day? 



THANKSGIVING SERMON 

Preached at Guilford, Nov. 26, 1863. 

''Blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with 
benefits, even the God of our Salvation.^' — Psalm 
Ixvill, 19. 

All that is necessary to put us In a frame of 
holy thanksgiving, if our hearts are right towards 
God, is a recognition of the multitude and the 
magnitude of the benefits of the Lord towards 
us. The best Thanksgiving sermon (for this 
hour) is that which brings to mind most of the 
goodness of God (in the passing year). 

But It is no more possible to number up and 
recount the benefactions of providence, than to 
count the raindrops that fall, or measure the 
light that is poured down from the heavens, or 
take note of the almost infinite fruitfulness and 
adornments of the world. Our life enters upon 
the inheritance of all the past made great and 
rich by creation, skill and power — a past, even 

141 



142 HOW ONE CHURCH 

as related to this earth, full of a kind and boun- 
tiful providence where in their vast storehouses 
were laid the gold and silver, the iron and 
the coal and all that multiform wealth, by which 
the prosperous world makes its way from age 
to age. The present is ours, horizon round and 
to the zenith, filled with overflowing redundancy, 
of growth and beauty and glory, and the future, 
typed in the present but a far brighter world 
in the vision of hopeful expectancy. These three 
mighty tributaries, that of the past, the present, 
and the future, — each gathering the waters of its 
boundless continent — meet and mingle their floods 
in the ocean of our passing life. These depths 
on depths, these far rolling billows, these heav- 
ing floods ! Can we trace the tides back to their 
every fountain? Can we resolve the mighty com- 
mingled main, even into its Amazons? This year 
of time has rolled and heaved and tossed, the 
voice of many waters. We look out upon the 
deep stormy sea, — we feel its swell, — the beat- 
ing of its mighty heart, yea, its floods are mov- 
ing in all the channels of our being, — ^but can 
we tell what God has sent by the raindrop, what 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 143 

by the rivers, and what from the fountains of 
the great deep? Can we map out and make this 
ocean, and say, thus came this and thus came 
that? No, the assimilation is too perfect, the 
volume is too vast, the sources are too many, too 
far removed, and from too far sundered climes, 
to tell in what proportion the one kind or the 
other, the little or the great are made into one 
great living, moving, whole. But this restless, 
changeful, vast and sublime sea of human experi- 
ence, God throws mighty currents together. He 
only knows what has filled the rounded year, — 
what is the particular reward of thanks, part 
for part. This we know that as individuals, com- 
munities, states, in God, in his care, by his power, 
inspirited by his breath, upheld by his world, 
moved upon by sunshine and rain, night and day, 
summer and winter, — touched by individual, social 
and national Interest, tremulous with profound 
sensation as the resistless will of the divine pur- 
poses thundered along the track of time, glad- 
dened or saddened, as the air that breathes as 
from many lands — thus in way and spirit and kind 
too strange and many for tongues to tell, — In 



144 HOW ONE CHURCH 

God we have lived and moved and had our being. 
Thereupon recognizing the fact that much of the 
goodness of God is only experience, not by us 
traced, and perhaps not traceable to its particular 
instrumental cause. 

We may pass to speak of some of the rivers 
that have poured themselves into this sea. As 
looking upon a landscape, we feel the effect of its 
combined power, while if called upon for de- 
scription, our attention would be called to the 
more striking features of outline and coloring, 
yet perhaps overlooking the little and the subtle 
things, that perhaps have most of all to do with 
the feelings. So it will be in recounting the sub- 
jects of our yearly thanksgiving. Blessings large 
and good we shall find, but many a cause of great 
gladness experienced will be overlooked. Those 
intangible things, the flow of spirits, the inspira- 
tion that breaks on us and makes the heaviness 
leap with a bound, — that relish of life that comes 
upon us we know not by what or how, only that 
we feel an ecstasy of living blessedness, those 
gifts of gladness that seem not attached neces- 
sarily to any particular outward fact or condi- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 145 

tion, will not come in our way, — so that to all that 
can be told we may add gratitude for the good 
unspeakable. 

We begin our song of thanksgiving in the glad 
harvest hymn. — Every season our bountiful God 
comes forth and spreads the boards and fills the 
garners of the world — Every year a fresh wave 
of creative power in indescribable loveliness, in 
substantial and delicious fruitfulness, passes over 
the earth. What a ministry to human support 
and gladness! Is this a little thing? Nay, verily, 
for it is our life. Herein the Lord lays the 
foundations of all human prosperity and enjoy- 
ment. Ours is emphatically a land of plenty, a 
very good garden of the Lord, and faithfully 
does he serve unto it. Always enough, so that 
no people live so lavishly and freely as ours, and 
besides the overflow of our garners goes forth 
in burdened channels to gladden the nations of 
the earth. There has been but two years dur- 
ing the last forty, in which the exports of bread 
stuffs and provisions from our shores have fallen 
short of ten million dollars' worth in value per 
annum. While on the other hand some seasons 



146 HOW ONE CHURCH 

have contributed to foreign support sixty or 
seventy millions' worth. The exports of this kind 
for 1 86 1 amount to over 94 million dollars. 

This vegetable abundance Is not merely a com- 
fortable supply for constantly recurring wants, 
but it is the life and stamina of all business and of 
every enterprise, even an indispensable condition 
of moral, benevolent and religious actions. Take 
away this, our yearly stock In all trade, which is 
the constant creative gift of God, and we be- 
come helpless and bankrupt In everything, — all 
secular activities and prosperities fail, world-wide 
and multitudinous charities are dried up at their 
fountain heads. The human will Is powerless for 
the lack of the wherewithal to feed It, and the In- 
strumentalities of Its work. 

Though fruitful seasons have to do to such 
an Incalculable extent with all human prosperity, 
there Is feeble gratitude rendered therefor, be- 
cause abundant harvests are taken as a matter 
of course,— as a necessity of result, — but they are 
not so. Consider over what a perilous sea, ex- 
posed to how many and great dangers, this rich 
convoy of God is brought safe into port. If it 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 147 

start too early or too late, if for long days and 
weeks and months, the varying fickle elements are 
not held in the exact and true balance, if for one 
day the cold shall break forth from the frozen 
North, — if the arid winds breathe too long, or 
a subtle blast creeps into the skies, or the rot or 
mildew infect the cargo of the year, or any one 
of the many near and easily conceivable calami- 
ties befall, — the fig tree shall not blossom, neither 
shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive 
shall fail, and the fields yield no meat, the flock 
shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be 
no herd in the stalls. The hand of the Lord, it 
is constant and firm that pilots the rich freight- 
age, — the hand of the Lord it is, that turns away 
the destroyer, and the garners are filled with the 
labors of the Lord. 

Therefore let us not forget his benefits in the 
bountiful gift of the year to the husbandry of 
the land — let us not be so foolish as to regard 
this as a little favor, or to imagine that these 
are the provisions of our own hands, — Give 
thanks for the well tempered and the time favored 
season — Herewith behold the goodness and the 



148 HOW ONE CHURCH 

mercy of the Lord. 

II. Again the healthful skies. By occasion 
of human folHes, vices, and sins, disease and 
death are sometimes permitted to make wide and 
universal havoc, filling, the lands with gloom, sor- 
row and alarm. 

In this wise a terrible arrest is sometime put 
upon all business, and all enjoyment and all life 
is swallowed up in the fear of death. — But 
though in much moral corruption, horribly vicious 
and contaminated in many a locality, — greatly 
condemned in the sight of God, and to natural 
pestilent Influences exposed, yet the gloom of suf- 
fering and death has not been suffered to darken 
heavily upon the people — Even our armies under 
the so often fatal Southern skies, have gone sur- 
prisingly clear of sweeping mortalities, and the 
deadly spirit of rebellion has not been suffered 
to poison the loyal heavens. 

But this year, excepting the battle work, quietly 
and in ordinary proportions, the dead have sunk 
to their rest and passed away. This bitterness 
in the cup of mortals has been In dilution and not 
poured out In the dregs and to overflowing. 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 149 

Not angrily and horribly has death had carnival 
through our cities and villages. What a woe, 
what a calamity, what an embarrassment and con- 
fusion of the great purposes^ and wars of the 
time, If the people had been compelled to turn all 
their thought and energy to guard and battle 
against some fearful infection, attacking man or 
beast or both. 

O bless and praise the all-merciful and long- 
suffering God that he hath been pleased to spare 
us the deserved chastisements and works of in- 
fectious and pestilential disease. 

Not further can we go without touching upon 
the great Interest of the war, — Though we know 
not famine or plague, war is upon us still and 
yet we thankfully remember at once, not its heavi- 
est burdens. It has not devastated our fields, de- 
stroyed our towns, cut off surplus, or work, con- 
fined or blocked business — nor yet suppressed the 
expression of general cheerfulness or even of 
gaiety. Much has indeed been sacrificed and sharp 
sorrows have been endured, but the tone of the 
public heart Is but little depressed. Many weights 
have been put upon business but it has been 



ISO HOW ONE CHURCH 

strengthened to bear them. With all the varied 
and heavy taxations of the day, our old benevolent 
institutions have not only been sustained, but new 
and great channels of religious and charitable ac- 
tions have been opened. 

The exigencies of the strife in which we are 
engaged have necessitated great exertion, but 
there has been supplied abundant strength and 
will to put it forth. 

We are glad that this stupendous struggle is for 
a right cause. That humanity and religion bid 
us stand by it with even all our millions of men 
and millions of treasures, until against liberty 
and country no more the enemy shall dare to 
come. The giant is not hungry or thirsty, nor 
weary, nor discouraged, nor hurt to hinder him 
in the least in extending head, hand, foot, or 
any limb, strengthened and willed, by kind provi- 
dence, to smite yet more heavily, not yet doubt- 
ing but strength and endurance will be granted, 
by the grace of God, to hold out to the end. 

The nation has plainly now entered upon a 
new stage of the great struggle. The first star- 
tling shock of the nation was the atrocious and 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 151 

unnatural fact of war begun upon this best and 
most benign of governments. Then the very dead 
almost leaped from their graves in astonishment 
and indignation. Patriotism burst up in the 
deserts and flowed forth like rivers. It seemed 
then that the voices of the indignant milHons 
would at once thunder their unnatural rebellion 
into everlasting silence. As if the flash of myriad 
eyes would scorch out the sedition like the sudden 
lightning. That hour of resurrection past and 
armed men put themselves in array — but the re- 
bellion stood and lifted up its head, a cold- 
blooded, long meditated wickedness. War it 
should indeed be if the Nation dared to arm and 
defend itself. 

Then came the day of decision, the great day 
of decision. Its revelations were most startling 
and appalling. Loyalty was confused and 
alarmed. Great men broke faith and went over 
to the enemy. Public confidence seemed de- 
stroyed — the government knew not whom to trust, 
treason was everywhere. Gradually and through 
gloomy days of disappointment, delay and disas- 
ter, the lines were drawn with measurable distinct- 



152 HOW ONE CHURCH 

ness. 

The people looked abroad In their first great 
national distress, for sympathy with their holy 
cause, but It was only to be surprised and pained 
by the scornful and threatening attitude of the 
great powers of the world. They beheld the for- 
midable proportions of the revolt, Its strength, not 
only In the seceded states, but also in northern and 
foreign sympathy, the probability of a long Civil 
War and of grave foreign complications. This 
revelation of dangers and difficulties brought mat- 
ters to another stage. The people set themselves 
to the consideration of cost and possible conse- 
quences, and Inquired what they should do. Con- 
fidently was it prophesied by many that the na- 
tion would reconsider Its action, lay down the 
sword and make the best terms it could with the 
encouraged, confident and arrogant rebellion. The 
real question was, whether the purpose could be 
fixed, here to maintain the glorious old nation- 
ahty against the armed protest of the confed- 
erate states and the hostile sentiment and war- 
like menace of allied European states. 

That was the question which went Into the 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 153 

round of the last annual elections. At first there 
were indications of faltering. Majorities began 
to have an ambiguous interpretation, but when 
the naked issue was made, and the people were 
required to say whether they would give up their 
righteous cause and accept the dictation of any 
terms, or put their faces like flint against the 
enemy in all his destructive and wicked doctrines 
and the utmost of his powers, aided by whomso- 
ever might wish or dare to join hands with him. 
When the loyal states were asked if they would 
make a business of sustaining their righteous laws 
and beneficent institutions against all enemies, 
till victorious or exhausted, — from Maine to 
California by thundering majority, with most 
trifling local exceptions, they said, deliberately, 
firmly, solemnly, "We will, we will, in the name 
of humanity, of justice, of freedom, of God, 
above hope, or fear of man and principles, cease 
to stand in the way of a righteous peace." 

This not in bravado or loud assertion, but in 
the silent voice of their deliberate actions. Thus 
it is said from the South. They see and interpret 
the signs of a fixed purpose to finish up the re- 



154 HOW ONE CHURCH 

belllon by the sword. 

This is the unmistakable political position of 
the hour. The first calm, firm time has come. 
The people see a formidable array, they expect 
delays and disaster and disappointment, but there 
is but one way. Trust in God and on, thereby are 
we delivered from the distressing doublemlnded- 
ness and perplexity of the past. Rough and toil- 
some Is the road, it bristles yet with perhaps thrice 
a hundred thousand hostile bayonets, and Is swept 
by hundreds of guns, but that is our road, and 
on it we must march, and with bullet and bayo- 
net and cannon, clear the way. 

But this purpose has not become so fixed with- 
out the favor of providence. Success from the 
Lord has encouraged the heart and strengthened 
the arm. This year our assisted sword has cleft 
the rebellion in twain, — it lies in two bleeding 
members, with little present prospect of making 
sound the ugly cut. Unto the quick other mili- 
tary lines are cutting, — into the very vitals of the 
confederacy the sword Is now piercing, turning 
and tearing in its way, and opening an ugly wound. 
We believe as we survive the year, that we 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 155 

are getting on. The Rio Grande welcomes once 
more the old unchanged flag, very few are the 
backward steps while our brave armies are march- 
ing on. Yet the battle victories are but a part 
of our rejoicing. 

There Is a change of front and the motioning 
of better signs over the seas. Truth is vindi- 
cating our good cause upon foreign shores. The 
threatening cloud of intervention, which has 
frowned so darkly upon our horizon during all 
the struggle. Is little by little lighting up. 

Surprises are now by favor, rather than by in- 
terposed difficulties. Piracy is getting something 
of its deserved name and treatment. The far- 
famed names of the muses have a pleasanter look 
with the broad arrow of Old England upon them. 
It is a grateful change of affairs to be warned 
of danger, by better-natured neighbors across the 
line. 

By favor of Him in whose hand are the hearts 
of kings and peoples, who turneth them as the 
rivers of water are turned, there Is more free- 
dom from fear of foreign intervention than at 
any previous time during the war. In spite of 



156 HOW ONE CHURCH 

the strong feeling against the success and welfare 
of our government, and desire to obstruct and 
oppose and dismember the great republic, that 
Is too plain to be mistaken on the part of the great 
Interested and jealous powers, the Lord has 
caused those without to continue at peace with 
us, holding back foreign enemies by the restraint 
of his providence. 

It Is also a part of our strength and confidence 
to-day, and therefore a subject of gratitude, that 
we are so favored In respect to the different 
branches of government and command. That the 
nation's purpose and energies have not been con- 
fused and weakened by a change of administra- 
tion — that a man with the physical firmness of 
a rock and the toughness of a whip-end, occupies 
that post of highest responsibility which has re- 
peatedly crushed the war-worn veteran, — that 
through all the rough, perilous and stormy months 
a strong man has stood undaunted and hopeful at 
the helm of the state — in his very bearing a tower 
of strength to the disquieted people — that God 
chose out a man of all commanding honesty in 
this day of distrust and put him over us — a man 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 157 

who Is willing to let all the world Into a scrutiny 
of his every act when that scrutiny shall not en- 
danger the public good — a man whom all the 
wickedness, perversity and opposition and war- 
fare of his enemies and the enemies of the coun- 
try, have not discomposed or tempted to a single 
Inconsiderate word or act — a wonderfully bal- 
anced and passionless and benevolent soul — a man 
so wise to use the wisdom and strength of all 
other men — so quick to forecast what the peo- 
ple ought to do, so discreet as to the manner 
and time of successful action — so Independent 
of all personal or party embarrassment — so true 
In heart as to the highest Interest of the coun- 
try and the times — and withal so persistent and 
firm — that friend and foe may ever know just 
where to find him — such a leader and commander 
God hath In his mercy appointed for the nation In 
Its most Imperiled and stormy hour — for the life 
and health of such a president In such a time, the 
people are grateful. 

For the noble company of loyal governors we 
also give thanks — and not least because that good 
man and true, honored for his ability and Intelll- 



158 HOW ONE CHURCH 

gence, Integrity and fidelity, William A. Bucking- 
ham was and has continued to be the Governor 
of the Commonwealth of Connecticut. For the 
excellent company of councilors in the high places 
— for the many able and devoted commanders in 
our army and navy — who stand out illustrious as 
the strength and adornment of the national cause 
— for the noble armies which have been aggre- 
gated by the providence of God — inspirited to 
victories — and planted strong in the high places 
of the field, for the reenforcements, which are in 
preparation — yea, for all the personnel and the 
material, the men and the financial resources — 
all the political and moral soundness and stability 
of the national cause, we give thanks unto Him 
who has ordained all. 

Nor do we attribute the preservation of our 
civil and social Interest — the safety of life and 
property from the fierce and uncontrollable vio- 
lence of popular passion — the preservation of 
law and order In our towns and cities and states 
— in the midst of so many and great disturbances, 
In the midst of so much that Is false and Inflam- 
matory — that measureless blessing — the continued 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 159 

security of our families, not primarily to man or 
men, but to the kind guardianship of Almighty 
God. That the mob has not risen under the 
abundant instigation, to burn and pillage and mur- 
der everywhere — is because the Lord has made 
us to dwell in safety — Popular Government, has 
not thus come to wreck — but we have seen the ele- 
ments of the political tempest — the terrible agen- 
cies of destruction and heard the roar of the break- 
ers — enough to give us a deeper appreciation of 
the shield that is over us and the defenses around 
about us and our families. 

But we should be strangely blind to the wonders 
of divine providence in the nation, did we over- 
look the marvelous revolution of sentiment and 
action that Is going on In respect to human slavery 
— Here we are led to exclaim, "Behold, God hath 
wrought!'* 

We stand now perhaps midway between the old 
and the new, both wondering at what was and at 
what Is. And are we not amazed now, to see 
how an institution that Is founded In oppression, 
which makes merchandise in most brutal way of 
human beings, which buys and sells Immortal souls 



i6o HOW ONE CHURCH 

— an institution abhorred of the philanthropy and 
the religion of the world as the sum of all vil- 
lainies, In view of the nature of which even the so 
accounted Infidel, Jefferson, confessed he trembled 
when he remembered that God was just. I say, 
"Are we not amazed at the fact?" that this quin- 
tessence of despotism has so infused all the na- 
tion's blood and conscience — had so intrenched it- 
self in the very citadel of freedom, had become so 
sacred in the habits and traditions of the laws and 
the politics of the land, that when this rebellion 
broke out and for months afterward, there was 
nothing held so inviolable and treated with so 
much delicacy and respect, as this wicked insti- 
tution, though then notoriously the Mother of 
treason, secession and war, every other right or 
possession was clearly seen to be forfeited by re- 
bellion. 

But in the Union or In revolt out of it. Slavery 
was evermore to have its constitutional right, to 
oppress men or destroy governments, or what- 
ever It willed. This right of wrong was so sacred 
that it took well nigh two years of disastrous war, 
in the providence of God to create a sentiment 



WENT THROUGH A WAR i6i 

that even dared to treat slavery like every other 
forfeited right. 

Then three long months were given for this 
outlaw, public enemy, maker of all sedition, to 
save itself. The nation as a nation, was it not 
solicitous that the peculiar institution should avail 
itself of salvation? Was there not grief and 
wrath throughout the land because slavery was 
likely to be treated as an enemy according to its 
deserts? Have not the people been ready, if God 
had let them, to make peace to the reinstatement 
of the sum of all villainies, to its former high 
place of insolence and power? 

What a strange idolatry! Yet peace on such 
terms the people have not been able to make, be- 
cause, and only because slavery asked not for 
it, wanted it not. In the meantime events 
against which all the people prayed, at which they 
all suffered and mourned, have been at work upon 
the public mind. A few of the most eloquent and 
schooled men in America had been laboring for 
thirty years to abolitlonize the country, but their 
converts were not like in number to the drops of 
morning dew, but a war sprung by, and in, the 



i62 HOW ONE CHURCH 

interest of the evil — a war contrary to the desire 
of the people, an unmanageable war which no 
man could frame or direct — a war subordinate 
only to his direction who rules in the armies of 
heaven and earth, has abolitionized the land. 
Even semi-secession, intensely pro-slavery, border 
states are getting to be the most radical and thor- 
oughgoing emancipationists and immediate eman- 
cipationists, to be found. Blood-stained Balti- 
more has repented and stands on the side of the 
government and against slavery by ten thousand 
votes. Missouri and Delaware have wheeled into 
the line of freedom. Less than ten years ago all 
the legitimate authority and power of the govern- 
ment, and more under a northern president, were 
strained to make a slave state of unwilling Kan- 
sas. To-day, not according to human plans, not 
after any leadership, but by this God-fortuned 
war, all the authorities and powers of the gov- 
ernment, the courts, the executives, the army and 
the navy, in all their hitherto unparalleled for- 
midable and tremendous proportions, are legiti- 
mately and necessarily whether they would or no, 
by the very instincts of self-preservation, on the 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 163 

side of freedom. God has made the proud, un- 
willing people favor the oppressed, — yea, to take 
the slave and gladly welcome him as a needed and 
worthy fellow soldier and man. 

In the meantime the great armies, each obedi- 
ent to the decrees of heaven, have with their ter- 
rible attrition ground forward and backward over 
great states grinding the peculiar institution to 
powder. Slavedom has been shaken as with great 
earthquakes and unknown thousands have gone 
out of bondage. 

Is freedom a good thing? Are equal rights the 
American glory? Read the handwriting of the 
Lord on the times — "The year of jubilee hastens 
on." 

But one view more. Yet withal is the land 
desolate and afflicted. Do we feel. In spite of all 
we see, and all our reasoning, that these are evil 
and terrible days? These are not easeful and 
gainful and boastful times. Treasons are work- 
ing, blood and tears are flowing. Yes, yes, it is 
so. But what then? It Is in some sort the treat- 
ment that God visits upon his own chosen church 
and people. How did the Lord bless his Infant 



i64 HOW ONE CHURCH 

and early church? With trouble! He gathered 
from her a noble army of martyrs. He made 
their excellencies to appear in a great fight of af- 
flictions. He made blood the seed of the church. 
In his mysterious ways he touched the deep 
springs of endurance, devotion and actions. So in 
troublous ways God is touching the hearts of 
this generation, and a nobler and better life is 
being lived by the people in this great day of 
visitations. A noble army of martyrs has been 
gathered out of the land. Not that all have gone 
nobly to the war — for if one of the tribe that 
followed Jesus was base and low, so shall not 
every company have the bad element also? But 
it were only what we do know to be just and true 
to say that a grander and more beautiful life has 
not been lived in this nation for many a year 
than that which has crowned and is crowning 
the earthly destiny of thousands of our young 
men. We wonder at the devotion, the courage, 
the lofty manhood that makes the bulk of our 
great armies. Our eyes have been permitted to 
behold the truly heroic, the loftiest traits of char- 
acter, in the living and the dead. In the open- 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 165 

Ings that are made the ambitious forget their 
self-seeking, and our daughters ever go far away 
to serve the poor and the lowly. 

The nation has never before worked such a 
power of benevolence. The proud, dry, cold rock 
of our prosperity has been smitten by the rod of 
the Almighty, and the waters of life burst forth. 
Never before was there so much of the holy 
work, so much clothing of the naked, feeding of 
the hungry, and ministry of the sick. Verily the 
days that produce fruit like these are not alto- 
gether to be deplored. In the book of remem- 
brance they are written on the earth and on high. 
Grand and precious will be the history of these 
very times. 

And upon all and with all the converting Spirit 
of God is dispensed. There is a mystic host con- 
tinually in our vast marshaled hosts, who marches 
and camps forevermore in the sight of Israel's 
sign, the pillar or cloud by day and fire by night. 
Christian truths and powers never had so benefi- 
cently to do with men in arms. 

Surely these are not the signs of wrath. It 
may be the fire of the Lord, but it is the fire which 



i66 HOW ONE CHURCH 

purifieth. 

We have loved this land. We have counted 
her the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole 
earth, foolishly and wickedly boasted much, per- 
haps, but love deep and devoted we had for this, 
our beloved country. 

But time fails for the enumeration of particu- 
lars. Greatly has our good cause been favored 
In many and very different ways, and strength- 
ened In heart as by the inspiration of the Al- 
mighty. A cheerful and Inexpressible faith sets 
itself towards the future, warlike and formidable 
as it may appear. This Is not a matter of self- 
assertion and boasting, it is both felt and ob- 
served. Listen to a correspondent writing from 
the rebel capital to the London Times — a party 
not partial to us: "No one, who has been con- 
versant with the northern states during the last 
two and a half years, can have failed to notice 
with astonishment the faith stronger than death 
which the Northerners have exhibited In their 
'Star,' 'their manifest destiny,' 'their religion,' 
their alpha and omega, their dreams of dominion 
from sea to sea, and (to quote Mr. Everett's 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 167 

words) from the icy pole to the flaming belt of 
the equator. No parallel faith has ever been 
exhibited by the Confederate states in their fu- 
ture. Six great Southern victories in the field 
and three drawn battles, exhausting the nine prin- 
cipal collisions of the war, the entire absence of 
any such panic as Bull Run, or Chickamauga, the 
tried inefficiency of the Federal blockade, the un- 
molested predatory flight of Alahamas and Flor- 
idas at sea, have altogether failed to inspire the 
masses of the South with any of that confidence 
in themselves which neither defeat nor disaster, 
nor hope deferred, nor illusions dispelled, have 
ever shaken out of the Northerners. Deny it 
who may, there is something sublime in this shad- 
owy earnestness, and misty magnificence of North- 
ern faith and self-reliance. Would that I could 
see promises of future and final Southern triumph 
in any corresponding quality of the Southern 
mind." 

Such the tribute that an enemy is constrained to 
render to a cause and people that have borne the 
distraction, abuse, strange and bitter animosity, 
of almost the whole world during the protracted 



1 68 HOW ONE CHURCH 

agony of a life and death struggle. Yea, all the 
nations around have waited in diabolical expecta- 
tion and hope to witness the dying struggle of the 
dismembered Republic, but they behold with as- 
tonishment that life and faith are waxing stronger 
and stronger. Far be it from us to glory in 
this but as we glory in our God. And there is 
glorying in Him here. Regard for underlying 
principles explains faith on the one side and the 
lack of it on the other. One side of this great 
war had a sustaining cause, the other has none. 
Can most unjustifying rebellion and barbarous 
slavery give birth to an inspiring faith? Hatred 
and ambition lit the Southern fire, and the raging 
hordes came on to kill and destroy. It was not 
so with the Northern blood. It thrilled not for 
war. There was no murder in the loyal heart. 
There was shuddering at thought of battles and 
slaughter, and brotherly incredulous smile at the 
bluster of military array. There was no thought 
of the sword, until a voice, as from God and the 
alarmed genius of country, liberty and humanity, 
whispered solemnly in all the air and bade all the 
children of duty stand by the imperiled interests 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 169 

of the hour, even unto blood. How went our 
heroes to the war? Gentle-hearted sons of peace, 
they went with dauntless courage and devotion, 
not to kill but to die if need be. It was not pas- 
sion that spurred them on, it was not frenzy that 
nerved their arm, but a cause more holy, more 
dear than the best things of the earth. We shall 
forget it never, who have seen it; how passion- 
less, how calm, how free from ambition, how true 
to duty and fuller of God than ever before, our 
armies formed. To-day it is the strong, loving, 
elder brother, quieting and restraining the danger- 
ous delirium of a younger and erring brother. 

Even so has a repentant Southern heart figured 
the strife. No, it is not for love of strife, it is 
not for ambition and empire, that our young men 
have accepted hard and horrible war. Not for 
this have so many of our noblest and best and 
dearest laid themselves down in the premature 
graves. What is it then that neither defeat nor 
disaster, nor hope deferred, nor illusions dispelled 
have ever shaken out. This deep, unshaken per- 
suasion, that earth in its present interests and its 
future will bring, and heaven with all its spirit and 



170 HOW ONE CHURCH 

laws indicate the work to be done, and pledge 
success for it. It is the feeling that such a cause 
must not be neglected, let whatever else may — 
that it can never fail. This sublimity of shadowy 
earnestness, this misty magnificence of faith comes 
of the irradicable conviction that here are precious 
things, in the conservation of which it is better 
to give all, and to die, rather than to bear life 
when they are taken away. Not unto the peo- 
ple be the praise for this faith, its achievements, 
its cheer, but unto Him who has wrought through 
them, breathed in them, causing them to have 
some such encouragement as is felt to-day. 

To sum up our rejoicing, now is God in the 
abundant garners, God in the healthful skies, 
God in the immunities of the great war, God in 
the settled single-mindedness of the loyal states, 
God in providential delays as well as military suc- 
cesses, God in guiding and restraining the bellig- 
erent spirits of foreign nations, God in rulers and 
commanders for the times, God in the elimina- 
tion and destruction of wicked principles and 
systems, God in the wonderfully growing unity 
and strength of the people on the ground of 



WENT THROUGH A WAR 171 

universal liberty, God In kindly chastisements in 
stirring the popular hearts to the highest desires 
and the noblest works, God In the dispensation of 
saving grace, God In making these and others un- 
told unite In the faith and hope of good things 
to come. 

For the many signs that our God is with us, let 
there be courage and rejoicing at home and in 
the field. By these motionings, on, on to peace 
and the free land. 

Our banner is not going down! The hands 
that bear it are strong. The God of Israel Is He 
that giveth strength and power unto His people. 

Blessed be God. Blessed be the Lord, who 
daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our 
salvation. 



H 91 80 n 




/ ,^^\ '^0.° /\ 













-0 1* 
















^"-^^^ 






*-. 











^^ ^^^ ^t 




^^ N. MANCHESTER I :> ^ '^ f^^^ul/^S ^ h O 

^*=^ INDIANA 46962 J r *=^<> * TT. • '^ ^^"^ %, ' * « «'o ' ,0' 



